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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



































An Anthology of Southwestern Verse 
THE GOLDEN STALLION 






























































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7 

cjhe GOLDEN 
STALLION 

O^N ANTHOLOGY OF POEMS 
CONCERNING the SOUTHWEST 
AND WRITTEN BY REPRESENT¬ 
ATIVE SOUTHWESTERN POETS. 



Edited by 

D. Maitland Bushby 

. \\ 


THE SOUTHWEST PRESS, INC. 


PUBLISHERS 


DALLAS, 


TEXAS 



Z 




DALLAS, 













\ 

Copyright, 1930 
The Southwest Press, Inc. 




©CIA 21693^ 

« • W 

nAR 10 1930' 


Dedicated to All Mothers 
of the Southwest 

AND ESPECIALLY 

to Mine 









































































































































































































































































ft 







INTRODUCTION 


In compiling The Golden Stallion I had two objectives 
in mind: first, to assemble in one collection work from rep¬ 
resentative poets of the Southwest; and second, to have that 
work of such a nature that it would give authentic portrayals 
of the peoples and the locale of the section named. The scope 
«of the Southwest as herein interpreted includes the states of: 
Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas . . . this being 

a geographical as well as a historical unit or section which 
was and is commonly thought of as the Spanish Southwest. Sub¬ 
ject-matter has been limited to those things which are charac¬ 
teristic of the section covered. In these pages you will meet the 
Indian . . the "Children That God Forgot” . . . you will meet 
the Spanish-American; the leather-faced "Desert Rat”; the hard¬ 
working but happy "Cowpuncher”; you will walk the sands of 
a desert that is at once terrifying and beautiful and that asks for 
your sympathy and understanding; you will breathe the exhili- 
rating air of the Atlantic as it sweeps in across the Gulf of Mex¬ 
ico to historical Texas’ shore, and you will catch the romance 
of the Pacific in charming California; you will "ride-herd” and 
learn some of the rollicking songs of the range-land; you will de¬ 
light in the mystic atmosphere of the Mexican border; you will 
see the most wonderful sunrises and nights that any section or 
country can offer; your blood will quicken to the throoming of 
Indian drums; you will sense the spirit of the last frontier . . . 
and last, you will know that these things are true for here the 
Southwest has interpreted herself. 

In my opinion the Southwest has never been correctly por¬ 
trayed in any anthology of poetry. All too many of the poets 
who have written of it have lacked the full acquaintance with 
it which leads to sympathy and understanding. One cannot 

(vii) 


INTRODUCTION 


limit one’s self to a Pullman on the Santa Fe if one wishes to 
know the Southwest . . . she has too much reserve. She re¬ 
sents the wrong impressions that only partially informed writers 
have given of her. For instance how many of these writers have 
stated that Arizona has within her borders the largest Yellow 
Pine forest in the world? Very Jfew if any . . . but these same 
writers have been careful to tell of Arizona’s heat! I think I 
am perfectly safe in saying that heat causes the deaths of more 
people in New York City and Chicago every summer than it does 
in Arizona in a period of ten years. It is time the country awoke 
to the wonderland that is Arizona and all of the Southwest. 
Misinterpretations have had their day, their believers and their 
producers . . . have done; truth is good for the soul of bet¬ 
ter understanding between the sections of this great country of 
ours. 

The Southwest is no longer a place where Indians collect 
scalps and label them: "Boston”, "New York”, "Chicago”, or 
"Philadelphia”; nor is it a place where "bad-men” swap lead be¬ 
fore they can enjoy their breakfasts; nor yet again, is it a place 
where you are liable to be crushed by a buffalo stampede . . . 
no, these things have passed . . and forever. The Southwest 
is a beautiful land of estancias , ranchos , of mile-measured cot¬ 
ton fields, of plains the size of New York State, where grass 
grows knee high under God’s care . . . and it is there you will 
find the cattle and sheep that feed the East, citrus fruits are 
here in abundance, here are the country’s lettuce fields, and 
here are fields of wild poppies and other flowers that defy an 
artist’s interpretation . . . yes, and here is the desert where 
the silence is so deep that it hurts . . . this is the Southwest. 

We of the Southwest present this collection of poems as a 
reliable criteria of our homeland. No fairy tales are offered in 
these pages . . . truth alone is here to greet you and she comes 

(viii) 


INTRODUCTION 


with a steady and confident step; she speaks of no weakling, 
but of an empire in the making. 

It is hoped that The Golden Stallion will lead to a 
better and more intelligent understanding of the Southwest and 
to a fuller knowledge and appreciation of the poets in this sec¬ 
tion * * * The Country That God Remembers. 

•—D. M. B. 

Flagstaff, Arizona, 

August 1, 1929. 


(ix) 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


Acknowledgment and appreciation are hereby given to the 
following poets, publishers, magazines and papers who have sev¬ 
erally or individually given me permission to use poems appear¬ 
ing in this, The Golden* Stallion, anthology: 

Adventure: "He-Man” by Whitney Montgomery. 
American Poetry Magazine: "Squaw Butte” by Lucy Rey¬ 
nolds. 

S. Omar Barker for poems from his volume: Buckaroo 
Ballads. 

Blues : "Impression” by Norman Macleod. 

Contemporary Verse for the following: 

"Song” by Glenn Ward Dresbach. 

"Desert Death” by Charles Henri Ford. 

"Yet Autumn Mournfully” by Norman Macleod. 

The Dallas Morning News: "Cotton” by Walter R. 
Adams. 

Driftwind: "Haunted Hogan” by Norman Macleod. 

Sara Bard Field for "But Beauty Endures” from her volume 
The Pale Woman. 

The Forge: "The Grass” by John H. Knox. 

Hilton Ross Greer for poems from his volume A Prairie 
Prayer and Other Poems. 

The Gypsy: "Song” by Glenn Ward Dresbach. 

Sharlot M. Hall for poems from her volume Cactus and 
Pine. 

Holland's Magazine: "Mesquite in Springtime” by Walter 
R. Adams. 

JAPM for the following: "Wood Carriers of the Tonto” 
by D. Maitland Bushby and for: "Shadows” by 
Glenn Ward Dresbach. 


(xi) 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


Kaliedoscope: "Pale Floss and Silver Threads” by Glenn 
Ward Dresbach. 

New Masses: "Cattle-Town” by Norman Macleod. 

New York Sun: "The Signs” by Glenn Ward Dresbach. 
NeuA, York Times: ”Dance in the Desert” by Glenn Ward 
Dresbach. 

The Oracle: "Hotevilla” by Norman Macleod. 

The Overland Monthly: "The Fight at Piedras Negras” 
by Ben Field. 

Palo Verde for the following: 

"The Last Drummer” by D. Maitland Bushby. 

"A Desert Garden” by Glenn Ward Dresbach. 
"Sunset” by Catherine Stuart Macleod. 

"Quatrains” by Norman Macleod. 

"Year of Verbena” by Arthur Truman Merrill. 

"The General of Cerro Grande” by Idella Purnell. 
Poetry, A Magazine of Verse for the following: 

"Rio Abajo” and "Caller of Buffalo” by Mary Austin. 
"Footnote on History” by Grace Stone Coates. 

"Wild Flowers” by Sara Bard Field. 

"Superior, People” and "Pacific Winter” by Hildegarde 
Flanner. 

"Shore Road” and "Heron Flight” by Siddie Joe John¬ 
son. 

"March Plowing” by Ted Olson. 

Poetry of Today: "The Arapahoes” by Edna Davis Romig. 
Prairie Schooner: "Song for an Archaeologist: Aztec” 
by Norman Macleod. 

The San Franciscan: "Summer” by Charles Erskine Scott 
Wood. 

Scepter: "Yo-tan-e-ki” and "Desert Monks” by D. Mait¬ 
land Bushby. 


(xii) 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


Skyline : "Snow on the Painted Desert” by Norman Mac- 
leod. 

Step-Ladder: "Desert Bird Bath” by Glenn Ward Dres- 
bach. 

Southwest Review: "Drouth” by Mary Austin. 
Torchbearer: "Midnight” by Vaida Stewart Montgomery. 
Touring Topics: "Taos” and "Eureka” by Arthur Tru¬ 
man Merrill. 

✓ Troubador for the following: 

"Hopi Prayer”, "In Old Tucson” and "The Singing 
Sands” all by Charles Beghtol. 

"When Autumn Comes” by D. Maitland Bushby. 
"Presidio” by Winfred Davidson. 

"At Sunset” and "Dreams . . . Dust” by Rhoda 
De Long. 

"Sky-Meeting” and "Valley Quail” by Hildegarde 
Flanner. 

"Desert” by Whitley Gray. 

"Ctiy in Taos” by Norman Macleod. 

"Three Pueblos” by W. W. Robinson. 

P. L. Turner Co., Publishers: "Cotton Picker’s Song” 
from the volume Corn Silk and Cotton Blossoms by 
Whitney Montgomery. 

Voices: "The Golden Stallion” by Glenn Ward Dresbach. 
The Western Weekly: "Buffalo-Gap” by John H. Knox. 
Charles Erskine Scott Wood for the three excerpts from 
his volume The Poet in the Desert and for "Mired” 
from his volume Poems from the Ranges. 

Yale University Press for poems from A Stranger and 
Afraid by Ted Olson. 

The Carmelite for the four poems by Robinson Jeffers, and 
for "Chapala Midnight” by Witter Bynner. 

(xiii) 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


Henry Meade Bland for "The Pioneer” and "At Montalvo” 
from his volume Forty-seven Poems. 

Holland’s Magazine for "Red Earth” by Grace Noll Crowell. 
Yearbook Poetry Society of Texas for "Cavaliers” by Grace 
Noll Crowell. 

The Daily Oklahoman for "The Covered Wagon” by Lena 
Whittaker Blakeney. 

The Southwest Press for "Boomtown Drama” by Lexie Dean 
Robertson from her book "Red Heels.” 

Special acknowledgment and appreciation is extended to 
Glenn Ward Dresbach, Mary Austin, Robinson Jeffers, Whitley 
Gray, Charles Erskine Scott Wood, John H. Knox and Lilith 
Lorraine all of whom have been of very great assistance in 
preparing this anthology. 

—D. Maitland Bushby 


(xiv) 


BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION 


Adams, Walter R.: 

Born at Ireland, Texas 1897. 

Attended Ireland High School and Baylor University. 

In Military Service at San Antonio during World War. 

At present engaged in teaching and writing. 

Poems in The Dallas News, Holland’s, Contemporary Verse, JAPM, 
Westward, Sonnet Sequences, Palo Verde, Bozart and in Braithwaite’s 
anthology. 

Member of Poetry Society of Texas. 

Does prose writing and criticisms besides poetry. 

Austin, Mary: 

Born in Illinois, later moved to California and for sixteen years lived 
in the California desert. 

Married in 1891 to S. W. Austin. 

Holds degrees of Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Literature. For 
a time a member of the literary colony at Carmel, California where 
she became well acquainted With George Sterling, Jack London and 
Michael Williams. 

In 1918 moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she now has her 
home—Casa Querida. 

The author of some twenty books, including: "The Land of Little 
Rain”, “The Children Sing in the Far West”, "Lands of the Sun”, 
"The Basket Woman”, "The Flock”, "The Arrow Maker”, "A Woman 
of Genius”, “The American Rhythm”, "Lost Borders”, "Love and the 
Soul Maker”, and others. 

Well acquainted abroad and recognized by the leading writers of 
England, France and Italy. 

A contributor to all of the better magazines. 

Barker, S. Omar: 

Born at Beulah, New Mexico, 1894. 

Graduate with A. B. degree from New Mexico Normal University. 
Has been a cattle rancher, newspaper reporter, teacher, forest ranger, 
and served with the A. E. F. for nineteen months as Sergeant Co. D, 
502nd Engineers. 

His home, La Escondida, is located at Beulah, New Mexico. 
Professional writer. 

Poems in: Ace-High, Cowboy Stories, Adventure, Holland’s, Classmate, 
Target, Field and Stream, Outlook, old Leslie’s, L. A. Times Magazine, 
Overland Monthly, Palo Verde, Battle Stories, Stratford Monthly, Grit, 
Tom-Tom and others. 

Author of the books: "Vientos de las Sierras”, 1924, and "Buckaroo 
Ballads”, 1928—a third book, "Young Timber” to appear early in 1930. 
Associate Editor of Tom-Tom. 


(xv) 


BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION 


Beghtol, Charles: 

Born in Illinois. Graduate of Nebraska University. 

Has devoted considerable study and time to the Hopi, Aconi, and other 
Southwestern Indians; also, the Aztecs, Mayas and Incas of Central and 
South America. 

Now living in San Diego. 

His work has appeared in Overland Monthly, Judge, Frontier, Echo, 
Rocky Mountain News and others, including Troubadour where it 
has attracted wide attention due to charm of thematic conception 
and fidelity of portrayal. 

Blakeney, Lena Whittaker: 

Born Ozark Mountains, Arkansas. Educated privately. Wife of Benja¬ 
min B. Blakeney. Two sons. 

Contributor to Contemporary Verse, Southwest Review, Holland’s, Kansas 
City Star, Munsey’s, Outdoor Life, Southern Women’s Magazine, All’s 
Well, London Times. Author of the book of verse, Ports of Call. 
Residence, Oklahoma City. 

Bland, Henry Meade: 

Born in Fairfield, Solano County, California 1863. 

Attended University of the Pacific, Stanford and the University of 
California. Holds degree of Doctor of Literature. 

At present teaching Creative English in the State College at San Jose, 
California. Has served in this capacity for twenty-nine years. 

Author of seven books of verse and two of prose and many stort stories 
and prose articles. Known chiefly for his poetry. 

A contributor to the better class magazines of America and England. 

Bushby, D. Maitland: 

Born in Pueblo, Colorado, 1900. 

Attended Universities of Columbia and Arizona, New Mexico Military 
Institute, graduate of Arizona State Teachers’ College. Holds honorary 
degree of Doctor of Literature. 

Five years military service during and after World War; Member Second 
Division U. S. Army (Texas Division), rank of First Lieutenant. 

At present principal of schools at Scottsdale, Arizona. Married. 

Author of the books of verse: "Mesquite Smoke”, 1926; "Ocatilla 
Blossoms”, 1927; "Don Felipe”, 1929; and "Purple Sage” to be published 
early in 1930. 

Editor and owner of The Tom-Tom, A Magazine of Southwestern Verse. 
Contributing Editor to Scepter to Star-Dust and to Poetry Quarterly. 
Formerly Co-Editor of Palo Verde. 

(xvi) 


BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION 


Bushby, D. Maitland— (Continued) 

Poems in The Harp, The Christian Century, Westward, Bozart, Kaliedo- 
scope, Whispers, Argonaut, Star-Dust, Attic Salt, Poetry Review 
(London), Palo Verde, American Poetry, Golden Rule, Education, Con¬ 
temporary Verse, The Thinker, Journal of American Poetry, The Oracle, 
American Poet, Voices, Troubadour, Overland Monthly, Visions, JAPM, 
The New Dominion, The Boston Transcript, The Forge, Scepter, The 
Gypsy, Cleveland Club Woman, Driftwind, Chicago Tribune, New 
York Sun, New Mexico Highway Journal, Progressive Arizona ^nd others. 
Work in fifteen anthologies including Braithwaites, Macmillan’s "Cry 
for Peace”, Stockwell’s "Unrest” (London) and "Arizona Literature.” 
Included in Contemporary Poets and The History of Arizona. 

Executive Member League of Western Writers. 

Known as The Desert Poet. 

Bynner, Witter: 

Born in Brooklyn, New York, 1881. 

Graduate of Harvard, class of 1902. 

Phi Beta Kappa poet at Harvard in 1911 and at the University of Cali¬ 
fornia in 1919. 

One time assistant editor of McClure’s Magazine. 

Author of several one-act verse plays including "Tiger”, 1913, "The 
Little King”, 1914, and several others which are now collected in his 
"Book of Plays”, 1922. 

Author of several books of verse, among them "The Beloved Stranger” 
1920, "Caravan”, 1925, "Pins for Wings” 1921. 

Has done considerable translating of Chinese poetry, much of this work 
is included in his book "The Jade Mountain.” 

A contributor to all of the better class magazines. 

Included in "American Poets of Today”, "History of American Litera¬ 
ture.” 

"Cake”, a play, has been recently produced in California. 

Home address Santa Fe, New Mexico. ; 


Coates, Grace Stone: 

Born at Ruby, Kansas. 

One time teacher in public schools at Butte, Montana. 

Assistant editor of The Frontier. 

Work has appeared in many literary magazines, including Poetry, A 
Magazine of Verse, Palo Verde, Contemporary Verse, JAPM, Oracle and 
others. 

Included in Braithwaite’s 1925-29 inclusive. 

Her story, "Wild Plums”, is included in "O’Brien’s Best Magazine Stories 
for 1929.” 

Present address Missoula, Montana. 


(xvii) 


BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION 


Crowell, Grace Noll: 

Born at Inland, Iowa. Married N. H. Crowell in 1901. Member of 
many literary clubs and others. A contributor to, Good Housekeeping, 
McCall’s, Delineator, Holland’s, Scribner’s, Smart Set, Modern Pricilla, 
Windsor, Cassell’s, Pearson’s, Eve, etc. 

Author of three books of verse: White Fire 1925, Silver in the 
Sun 1928, Miss Humpety Comes to Tea 1929. Winner of several 
poetry awards including the Alamo Prize (Poetry Society of Texas) for 
1922-23, Curry Prize (Federated Women’s Contest) and the West Prize 
(Poetry Society of Texas) 1927. 

Residence, Dallas, Texas. 

Davidson, Winifred: 

Born in North East, Penn. 

Wife of John Davidson, theater manager, Point Loma, California. 

Well known under pen name of Yetta Kay Stoddard, under which name 
she has contributed many juvenile stories to a large number of magazines 
and papers for children. 

Author of the books of verse: "Point Loma Sonnets”, "The Hosts”, 
"Tell the Little Ones They Belong” and “Irish.” 

Her book "Where California Began” has just been released. 

Member British Poetry Society, San Diego Writers’ Club, and California 
Writers’ Club. 

Home address: Point Loma, California. 

De Long, Rhoda: 

Art editor for the Troubadour Press and president of the Block 
Printing Guild of the Hanuwah League of Arts and Crafts. Editor of 
the forthcoming This Quarter, a poetry review, and author of “Poems 
for Uranians”. 

Her poems have appeared in various poetry journals, but she is perhaps 
better known for her magazine cover designs and illustrations. 

Dresbach, Glenn Ward: 

Born on a farm near Lanark, Illinois, September 9, 1889. Graduate 
of University of Wisconsin. Served as Captain, U. S. Army during 
World War. 

Places of residence, Illinois, Panama Canal Zone, New Mexico and Texas. 
Married Mary Angela Boyle of Cumberland, Maryland, at El Paso, 
Texas, in 1921. 

Author of the books: In Colors of the West, Henry Holt and Co., 
1922, The Enchanted Mesa, Henry Holt and Co., 1924, Cliff Dwellings, 
Harold Vinal 1926, Star Dust and Stone, The Southwest Press, 1928. 
Poems in The Dial, Scribner’s, The Century, Hearst’s International, Poetry, 
A Magazine of Verse, Dearborn Independent, Contemporary Verse, The 
Southwest Review, The Lyric West, The Bookman, The Forum, The 
World Tomorrow, Voices, The Measure, The Double Dealer, The Mid- 

(xviii) 


BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION 


Dresbach, Glenn Ward— {Continued) 

land, All’s Well, The Saturday Evening Post, The American Magazine, 
Poetry Review (London), Cassel’s (London), Everybody’s, The San 
Francisco Review, The Harp, JAPM, Household, The Gypsy, The Lyric, 
American Poetry Magazine, Overland Monthly, Holland’s, Survey 
Graphic, The Commonweal, Christian Science Monitor, The New York 
Times, Ainslee’s, New York Sun, etc. 

Included in the following poetry anthologies: The Home Book of 
Modern Verse, Stevenson; The New Poetry, Monroe; The Third Book of 
Modern Verse, Rittenhouse; The Book of Poetry, Markham; Con¬ 
temporary Verse, Vols. I-II, Stork; Voices of the Southwest, Greer; 
The Southwest in Literature, Major and Smith; Braithwaite’s 1917 to 
1929 inch; etc. 

Included in: Who’s Who in America, International Blue Book, Who’s 
Who Among North American Authors, International Travel Registry, 
Creativve Artists of Texas, etc. 

Field, Ben: 

Born in Wallingford, Connecticut, 1868. 

Educated mostly in the public schools of California. 

Started the Los Angeles Masonic Library in 1900; this institution is 
now the largest of its kind in the West. 

One of the organizers of the League of Western Writers. 

Member of The Gamut Club, The Cadman Creative Club, The Verse 
Writers’ Club of Southern California. 

Has appeared in many American poetry and literary magazines and 
anthologies, and is the author of short stories and essays. 

Field, Sara Bard: 

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1882. 

Educated in Detroit, Michigan, with later uncredited work at Yale and 
Western Reserve Universities. 

Active for years in the Woman’s Liberation movement; assisted in or¬ 
ganizing Oregon and Nevada before State suffrage attempt gave way 
to National movement at which time became speaker for the National 
Woman’s Party and as such covered all of the Union except the South. 
Interested in and associated with the Labor and Peace Movements. 
Author of the books, "The Vintage Festival”, 1920; "To a Poet Born on 
the Edge of Spring”, 1925; "The Pale Woman”, 1927. 

A long dramatic poem, "Barabbas”, will be published in the Spring of 
1930. 

Poems and articles have appeared in Poetry, Voices, Lyric West, Good 
Housekeeping, Drama, Nation, Overland Monthly, New Masses, Equal 
Rights, The Harp, etc., etc. 

Included in several anthologies. 

Wife of Charles Erskine Scott Wood. 

Residence, "The Cats”, Los Gatos, California. 

(xix) 


BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION 


Flanner, Hildegarde: 

Born in Indianapolis, 1899. 

Attended Sweet Briar Institute in Virginia, and University of California. 
Hailed as one of the most promising younger women poets of the West. 
Author of three books of verse, "Young Girl”, 1920; "This Morning”, 
1920; "A Tree in Bloom”, and the one-act play entitled "Mansions”, 1920. 
Her work has appeared in many of the literary magazines. 

Ford, Charles Henri: 

Born in San Antonio, Texas, 1908. 

Attended preparatory schools in the South and St. Mary’s University in 
San Antonio. 

Editor of Blues, a Magazine of New Rhythms. 

Work has appeared in Transition, Poetry, Books, Pagany, Tambour, etc. 

Gray, Whitley: 

Head of the Poetry Guild of the "Hanuwah League of Arts and Crafts”; 
also a member of the Editorial Board of Troubadour. Founder and 
former president of the San Diego Poetry Society; founder and former 
editor of Muse and Mirror. 

His poems have appeared in many of the literary magazines during re¬ 
cent years. 

The Troubadour Press will issue a volume of his poems during the win¬ 
ter of 1929, entitled "Vagabond’s Bread.” 

Greer, Hilton Ross: 

Born in Texas, 1879. 

Litt. D. Austin College, 1924. 

On staffs of Southwestern newspapers since 1902. Managing editor 
Amarillo Daily News 1910-1914. Editorial writer for The Dallas Jour¬ 
nal since 1914. 

A frequent contributor to leading American magazines from 1903-1915. 
President The Poetry Society of Texas since 1921, the year of its organi¬ 
zation. Member the Poetry Society of America. Member the Folklore 
Society of Texas. 

Author of three books of verse, "Sungleams and Gossamer”, 1903; "The 
Spiders and Other Poems”, 1906; "A Prairie Prayer and Other Poems”, 
1912. 

Edited “Voices of the Southwest”, and "Anthology of Texas Verse,” 1913 
. . . and "Best Short Stories from the Southwest”, 1928. 

Hall, Sharlot: 

Educated in public schools of Arizona. 

Author of "Cactus and Pine”, 1910, revised and enlarged 1924. 

Included in the anthology "Songs of Horses.” 

Contributor to Short Stories and kindred magazines. 

Home—Prescott, Arizona. 

(xx) 


BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION 


Jeffers, Robinson: 

Born in Pittsburgh, Penn. 

Studied at University of Zurich, the University of Western Pennsyl¬ 
vania, the University of Southern California, Occident College in Los 
Angeles, and the University of Washington. 

Author of the books "Tamar”, "The Tower Beyond Tragedy”, "The 
Women of Point Sur”, "Cawdor”, and “Dear Judas”. 

A regular contributor to the better class literary magazines. 

Residence Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. 

The Titan of Western poets. 

Johnson, Siddie Joe: 

Born in Dallas, Texas. 

Attended Incarnate Word Academy in Corpus Christi, Texas, now a 
sophomore at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth. 

Poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including Poetry, A 
Magazine of Verse, and The Tom-Tom. 

Included in Braithwaite’s anthology for 1928-29. 

Knox, John H.: 

Born in Carlsbad, New Mexico, 1905. 

Attended schools and college in Abilene, Texas. 

Student of portraiture under the Russian artist, Peter Plotkin. 

His poems have appeared in many magazines throughout the United 
States. 

Editor of the Texas Number of Troubadour. 

Included in Braithwaite’s anthology 1929. 

Associate Editor of Tom-Tom. 

Lorraine, Lillith: 

Born in Corpus Christi, Texas, 1894. 

Teacher in public schools of Texas for three years. 

Established the Academy of Commerce and Languages in Mexico. 

Poems have appeared in many poetry magazines. 

Author of several scientific-fiction stories, some of which have been 
translated into Spanish and published in Mexico. 

Associate Editor of The Tom-Tom. 

Present address Tucson, Arizona. 

Macleod, Catherine Stuart: 

Born in Greenville, Alabama. 

Attended Universities of Alabama, Alabama Institute of Technology, Uni¬ 
versity of Arizona and University of New Mexico. 

Poems in JAPM, and Palo Verde. 

Included in Anthology of Alabama Poetry for 1928. 

Wife of Norman Macleod. 

(xxi) 


BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION 


Macleod, Norman: 

Born in Salem, Oregon, 1906. 

Attended Universities of Iowa, Arizona, Arkansas and New Mexico; at 
present a student in the last named. 

Contributing editor to New Masses. 

Poems have appeared in Tambour (Paris), Blues, New Masses, Poetry, 
The Harp, Bozart, Contemporary Verse, Opportunity, Birth Control Re¬ 
view, Janus, Prairie Schooner, Pagany, The Echo, Overland Monthly, The 
Frontier, Driftwind, etc. 

Included in Braithwaite’s anthology for 1928-29; The Anthology of 
Revolutionary Poetry, The Oracle Anthology, Grub Street Book of Verse 
for 1928, 5 Poets, Unrest, etc. 

Lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

Merrill, Arthur Truman: 

Born in Quechee, Vermont. 

Graduate of Stanford University. 

Teacher of History and English in various California High Schools; later 
college instructor in Economics and Oriental History. 

Student of voice culture under Richard Lowe at Berlin. 

Contributor to several verse magazines and anthologies. 

Author of the book “Whte Muse.” 

Living in Glendale, California. 

Associate editor of The Tom-Tom. 

Montgomery, Vaida Stewart: 

Born in the Lower Panhandle of Texas. 

Her poems and short stories have appeared in Holland’s, Modern Home¬ 
making, The High Road, The Buccaneer, The Year Book of Poetry 
Society of Texas, The Torch Bearer, JAPM, and others, including Sunset. 
With her husband, Whitney Montgomery, she is editor of The Kaleido¬ 
scope, a National Magazine of Poetry. 

Montgomery, Whitney: 

Born in Navarro County, Texas, 1877. 

A contributor to many magazines and anthologies, including Braith¬ 
waite’s. 

Author of the book, “Corn Silk and Cotton Blossoms”, 1928. 

In 1922 assisted in the organization of The Poetry Society of Texas, of 
which he is still a member. 

In 1929 he established The Kaleidoscope, a National Magazine of Poetry. 
Living in Dallas, Texas. 

Nance, Berta Hart: 

A contributor to Kaleidoscope, Contemporary Verse, JAPM, Holland’s, 
Southwest Review and other literary journals. 

Author of the book of verse, The Round Up 1927. 

Member Poetry Society of Texas. 

Resident of Albany, Texas. 

(xxii) 


BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION 


Olson, Ted: 

Born in Laramie, Wyoming, 1899. 

Graduate of University of Wyoming. 

Newspaper work in Oakland, San Francisco, New York City, Denver, 
Casper, Wyoming. Now news editor Laramie Republican-Boomerang. 
Contributor to most of the poetry magazines. 

Included in Braith waite’s 1925 to *29 inclusive; Strong’s “Best Poems of 
1926”; “Continent’s End, a California Anthology; “JAPM Anthology”; 
"Echo Anthology.” 

Winner of Poetry’s Young Poet’s Prize for 1928. 

Author of the book “A Stranger and Afraid”, Yale University Press, 
1928. 

Purnell, Idella: 

Wife of John M. Weatherwax. 

Editor of Palms. 

Contributor to all of the better literary magazines. 

Included in many anthologies. 

Living in Galeano, Guadalajaro, Mexico. 


Reynolds, Lucy: 

Born in Los Angeles, California, 1883. 

Educated in public schools of California. 

Contributor to several poetry magazines. 

Present address Los Angeles. 

Robertson, Lexie Dean: 

Contributor to Century, Good Housekeeping, Holland’s, Poetry and the 
Play, Ladies Home Journal, and others. Author of the book of verse, 
“Red Heels.” 

National Vice-President (from Texas) League of American Penwomen, 
frequent prize winner in the poetry contests sponsored by Poetry Society 
of Texas. Member Poetry Society of America. Well known as a reader 
of poetry. 

Residence, Rising Star, Texas. 


Robinson, W. W.: 

Born in Trinidad, Colorado. 

In title insurance business in Los Angeles, California. 

One year with the A. E. F. 

Contributor to many magazines, including Troubadour and Tom-Tom. 

(xxiii) 


BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION 


Romig, Edna Davis: 

Born in Rarden, Ohio. 

Married in 1913 to Albert Stanley Romig (deceased, October, 1919). 
One child, William Davis Romig. 

Educated in Ohio and Indiana; A. B. from DePauw University; M. A. 
University of Wisconsin. 

Taught at DePauw, 1911-1913; at Wisconsin University, 1917-19; and 
at University of Colorado since 1919, being now Assistant Professor of 
English. 

Member of Phi Beta Kappa, Modern Language Association, American 
Association of University Professors, Shakespeare Association of America. 
Has had prose articles in the Atlantic Monthly, Outlook, Yale Review, 
and various issues of the Studies of the University of Colorado. 

Verse has appeared in many poetry magazines and in some ten or twelve 
anthologies. 

Her book, "Robert E. Lee and Other Poems”, is to appear shortly. 

Spates, Virginia: 

Born in West Virginia. 

Past President The Eva Foeller Art League; recent President of The City 
Federation of Women’s Clubs of Sherman, Texas; Past Chairman of 
Texas Artists; now Chairman of Texas Artists for the Texas Federation 
of Women’s Clubs. 

Contributor to most of the poetry magazines. 

Included in twenty-two anthologies, among them Braithwaitc’s, Strat¬ 
ford’s, JAPM and others. 

Contributing Editor to Tom-Tom. 

Doctor of Osteopathy. 

Living in Sherman, Texas. 

Weiss, Henry George: 

Born in Nova Scotia, of American parents, 1898. 

Newspaper work. 

Contributed to New Masses, old Liberator, Driftwind, Pearson’s, Work¬ 
ers’ Monthly, Daily Worker Magazine, and others under the name of 
Francis Flagg. 

Included in American Anthology and An Anthology of Revolutionary 
Poetry. 

Present address, Tucson, Arizona. 

Wood, Charles Erskine Scott: 

Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, 1852. 

Graduated from West Point in 1874. 

Explored Alaska 1876. 

Served in Nez Perces Campaign 1877, Ute Campaign 1878, Adjutant 
Military Academy West Point 1882, resigned 1884. 

(xxiv) 


BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION 


Wood, Charles Erskine Scott—( Continued) 

Practiced law in Portland, Oregon, retired 1915, and has since lived in 
California. 

Author of "Maia”, "Masque of Love”, "The Poet in the Desert”, and 
"Poems of the Ranges.” 

And the prose works: "A Book of Tales”, "Heavenly Discourse.” 
Husband of Sara Bard Field. 

Residence, "The Cats”, Los Gatos, California. 

Young, Kathleen Tankersley: 

Born in Texas. 

Associate editor of Blues, a Magazine of New Rhythms. 

Contributor to all the poetry magazines. 

Included in several anthologies; Braithwaite’s, JAPM, and others. 

Home, San Antonio, Texas. 


(xxv) 












































































* 
















































































































































































































































CONTENTS 


Glenn Ward Dresbach: 

The Golden Stallion_ 

A Desert Bird Bath_ 

Song - 

The Signs_ 

Shadows ___ 

A Desert Garden_ 

Song - 

Pale Floss and Silver Threads_ 

Valley of Gold- 

Dance in the Desert_ 

Walter R. Adams: 

Mesquite in Springtime_ 

Cotton _ 

Mary Austin: 

Rio Abajo ___ 

Drouth _ 

Caller of Buffalo_ 

S. Omar Barker: 


Page 

_ 1 

_ 2 

_ 3 

_ 4 

_ 5 

_6 

_ 7 

_ 8 

_ 9 

_ 10 


_ 12 

_ 13 


_ 14 

_15 

_21 


Dream Dust ___ 22 

The Ballad of Stephen the Black_ 23 

Ride ’Em Clean!_ 25 

The Ballad of Cowboy Lou_ 26 

The Maverick _ 28 

When Billy the Kid Rides Again_ 29 

Charles Beghtol: 

Hopi Prayer _ 30 

In Old Tucson_ 31 

The Singing Sands-- 32 

Lena Whittaker Blakeney: 

The Covered Wagon- 34 

Sacret Heart Mission- 3 6 

Henry Meade Bland: 

The Pioneer - 37 

At Montalvo _ 38 

D. Maitland Bushby: 

When Autumn Comes_ 39 

Indian Side Show_ 40 

Last "Color” - 41 

Theresa of San Luis Del Bac- 42 


(xxvii) 















































































CONTENTS 


D. Maitland Bushby— ( Continued ) 1>AGE 

Yo-tan-e-ki -43 

Wood Carriers of the Tonto---44 

Cancion del Vaquero_ 45 

Charley Bill Moseys Out__46 

The Last Drummer-- 47 

Desert Monks _ 48 

Witter Bynner: 

Chapala Midnight _ 49 

Grace Stone Coates: 

Impressions of the Desert- 30 

Footnote on History_-— 31 

Petals of Darkness_ 32 

Grace Noll Crowell: 

Red Earth -----3 5 

Winifred Davidson: 

Rhoda De Long: 

At Sunset_1_ 5 8 

Dreams . . . Dust_ 59 

Ben Field: 

The Fight at Piedras Negras_! 60 

Poppy Gold _62 

Sara Bard Field: 

Herb-Gatherer _ 63 

Wild Flowers _ 64 

But Beauty Endures_I 65 

Hildegarde Flanner: 

Pacific Winter _ 66 

Superior People _ 67 

Sky-Meeting _ 68 

Valley Quail _ 70 

Charles Henri Ford: 

Desert Death __ 71 

Whitley Gr/ 

Desert _ 72 

Hilton Ross Greer: 

Cactus Blooms ___ 76 

A Road of Midnight Pageants_ 77 

(xxviii) 
























































CONTENTS 


Sharlot M. Hall: Page 

In the Bracken_ 79 

The Colorado River_ 80 

Robinson Jeffers: 

Boats in a Fog_ 81 

Hands _ 82 

Hooded Night _ 83 

Evening Ebb _:_ 84 

Siddie Joe Johnson: 

Shore Road _ 85 

Heron Flight ___ 86 

John H. Knox: 

Buffalo-Gap _ 87 

Grasshopper _ 88 

Plains _ 89 

Arrow-Head _90 

The Grass _ 91 

Deserted Kiva - 92 

Lilith Lorraine: 

Indian Blood _ 94 

Southwest _ 95 

The Ranger _ 97 

Catherine Stuart Macleod: 

Sunset _ 99 

Norman Macleod: 

Yet Autumn Mournfully---100 

Haunted Hogan _102 

Hotevilla- 104 

Song for an Aachaeologist: Aztec _105 

Snow on the Painted Desert_106 

Impression - 107 

Cattle-Town _ 108 

Quatrains _109 

City in Taos_ -110 

Arthur Truman Merrill: 

Year of Verbena- 111 

Taos _112 

Eureka- 113 

Vaida Stewart Montgomery: 

Midnight on the Prairies-114 

(xxix) 
















































































CONTENTS 


Whitney Montgomery: ^ age 

The Cotton Picker’s Song-|1* 

He-Man _ 117 

Berta Hart Nance: 

Sea-Wind on the Prairie-H8 

Prairie Love _H9 

In Praise of the Guadalupe-120 

Ted Olson: 

March Plowing _121 

Payment in Full_122 

Forfeit _123 

Idella Purnell: 

The General of Cerro Grande_124 

Lexie Dean Robertson: 

Boomtown Drama _126 

Lucy Reynolds: 

Squaw Butte _125 

W. W. Robinson: 

Three Pueblos _129 

Edna Davis Romig: 

Mesa and Foothill-131 

Phantom Oxcarts _ 133 

The Arapahoes _134 

Virginia Spates: 

The Desert _135 

The Flats _ 136 

Sunrise in Arizona_137 

Henry George Weiss: 

Deesert Phantasy _138 

Mountain and the Desert__ 139 

Charles Erskine Scott Wood: 

Summer - 141 

Excerpts from The Poet in the Desert _143 

Mired -148 

Kathleen Tankersley Young: 

Three Poems of the Southwest_150 

Landscape in Spring_152 

(xxx) 












































THE GOLDEN STALLION 















THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 

I have heard in the heart of darkness 
How the Golden Stallion paws . . . 
And the years beneath his longing— 
Star-dust and broken straws! 

I have seen, like blown coals glowing, 
His great eyes in the cloud 
And the flame of his mane was drifting 
From arched neck shining and proud. 

The dew of wild sky-meadows 
He shakes from him, and skies 
Burst into dawn wherever 
The spray of the splendor flies. 

And the Golden Stallion thunders 
Swift wonder from the crest— 
Through ages, hearts and places: 

Dawn, beauty and unrest! 


[ 1 1 


—Glenn Ward Dresbach 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


A DESERT BIRD-BATH 

A tiny hollow in rust-colored rock 
Has caught the brakish water drop by drop 
Grudingly given, by a higher ledge, 

From drouth-defeated springs . 

And here I see a gray bird stop 

And peer in wonder at the edge 

Of water and then flutter happy wings, 

Tossing wee rainbows on the gray of things . . 

And now it preens its feathers in the sun 
And stops to sing. 

O bird, I understand—for I am one 
Who found the lonely willow by the spring. 

—Glenn Ward Dresbach 


[ 2 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SONG 

I have seen the cloud of fire where the eagle’s eyes 
Were lighted; I have seen its shadows on 
The wild glades where the grasses lurched and swayed 
In wind from the flight of the fawn. 

I have seen the glade of molten moonlight where 
The fawn’s eyes joined the stars in a hidden pool— 
When the cloud of fire was ashes and the wind 
On the eagle’s eyes was cool. 

—Glenn Ward Dresbach 


[ 3 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE SIGNS 

I found two signs in a rugged pasture 
And knew that a house had been there by these; 
The depth of a hole that was dug for the cellar, 
The height of a little circle of trees. 

To leave the depth that a generation 
Had but half filled, and the height that grew 
To a roof of leaves and walls, with windows 
Open on summer, was something to do. 

But here in the valley some of the neighbors 
Have forgotten the place or have not known 
Too busy with depth of a grave, too weary 
Under the height of a little stone. 

—Glenn Ward Dresbach 


[ 4 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SHADOWS 

Where slow winds stir the golden dusts of sunlight 
On meadow grasses only enough to let through 
Earth-fragrances, falls suddenly the shadow 
Of a hawk, hung on dark wings between the gold and blue. 

The little spring is silver; in its mirror 

Shine the jeweled eyes of birds that near it stay, 

The lights on wings . . . and in the sky is only 

One cloud—but it shadows the spring when drifting over this 
way. 

Over the poppy, drowsy on the hillside, 

Warm as the lips of love, with only a stir 
Like the tremble of lifted lips, a shadow lingers— 

In silence, over the crimson, hovers the plunderer! 

All to be changed so soon! The dusts of the golden 
Hours and the silver and crimson, all patiently wrought 
To perfection and lost! . . Hawk, cloud and bee in one 

shadow 

To hover and pass! . . and leave on the mind but the 

shadow of thought. 


[ 5 ] 


—Glenn Ward Dresbach 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


A DESERT GARDEN 

From blue sky edges riot down 
The vines of dawn whose petals blow 
In smoky clouds that drop their sparks 
Which into cactus flowers grow. 

And in the narrow valleys, bound 

Into the distance, yucca stands 

At slow white dreams, too proud for love, 

Too ghostly for the touch of hands. 

It was no wonder that she made 
A garden, though the growth was slow, 

For something lovely to be her own— 

And something that needed help to grow. 

—Glenn Ward Dresbach 


[ 6 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SONG 

The minnows were shuttles 
In willow patterns 
Spread on the pool. 

The leaves and the minnows 
Were shining together, 

Shining . . . and cool. 

A wisp of the rainbow 
On wings that were jeweled, 

The humming bird came. 

The bird and wild roses 
Were dancing together, 

Dancing . . . and flame. 

—Glenn Ward Dresbach 


[ 7 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


PALE FLOSS AND SILVER THREADS 

Pale floss and silver threads, too frail for these 
Vast looms to catch in tapestries and hold 
To patterns of the crimson and the gold, 

Are lost in air. The ripple of a breeze 
On flaming hillsides in a moment frees 
The milkweed silk; the thistle-down grows bold 
For flight in one quick breath of wind that rolled 
The puffballs on their aimless destinies. 

Yet cobwebs cling where some proud altar lost 
The flame, and thistle-down is blown again 
Where reapers passed, and puffballs now are turned 
Where wheels of conquest left the ruts soon crossed 
By wind—and O, how many times since then 
Earth’s banners into sunset dipped and burned! 


—Glenn Ward Dresbach 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


VALLEY OF GOLD 

Dawn was a golden stallion 
With one star on his face, 

And heights and skies about him 
Grew rhythmic with his pace 
The time I found the place. 

I looked down from the mountain— 
Below me pearl-mist rolled 
Like fairy seas to distance . . . 

Left for me to behold 
A valley full of gold! 

No mines reared shadow-portals, 

No trails were patterned there. 

Only a golden silence 
Was rapturous on the air— 

And gold was everywhere. 

I cannot name wild flowers 
That lifted it from earth . . 

And who could pause to count it— 
To lose it though re-birth 
Adds yearly to its worth! 


[ 9 ] 


—Glenn Ward Dresbach 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


DANCE IN THE DESERT 

Veiled in the distance-rippled haze 
The form of a goddess seems to stand 
As tall as mountains, and her gaze 
Is dawn across the vast of sand, 

And she throws in an arc from her throne of days 
The scarf of rainbows in her hand. 

Her feet hold rhythms of questing storm 
And passion pulsing in the sea. 

Pearl, jade and ruby, god-caught, form 
Her anklets flashing dreamily 
And the touch of her body seems to warm 
Her veils that circle out to me. 

Her breasts, like rounded mountains where 
Falls all the star-dust and the dew. 

Make dizzy the enraptured air, 

And her white throat uplifted through 
The circling veils is now too fair 
For clearer light or nearer view. 

Her eyes behind the veils are more 
Than mortal eyes can look upon, 

Except as those upon a shore 
Of distance look into the dawn 
And grope to it—but as before 
See it far off and quickly gone. 


[10] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


What starry cymbals chime for her? 

What strings are shaken from their trance? 

What thundering winds sing from the blur 
Of worlds, responsive to her glance? 

We hear not—yet to music stir . 

She has no partner for the dance! 

And all that’s left of gods in men 
Cries out for her, to feel the swing 
Of worlds about her feet, and then 
Her touch and but a moment cling 
Against her—though whirled out again 
To live but in remembering! 

■—Glenn Ward Dresbach 


[11] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


MESQUITE IN SPRINGTIME 

A hardened, cold woman 
Holding a blossom-braided 
Lace shawl 
Over the grim thorns 
Of a barren life. 


—Walter R. Adams 


[12] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


COTTON 

I climb, at dusk, the narrow trail 
That leads me, stone by stone, 

Up to the slim hill’s yellow crest, 
Where broom weeds long have blown; 
And there I pause and turn to look— 
A sort of good-night view— 

Upon the still September field, 

Where soon shall fall the dew. 

And as I look, I half-forget 
Such painful things as these: 

Torn fingers, aching, painful back, 
And bruised and crimson knees. 

For beauty robes the resting earth; 

The toilsome field below 
Is magical and calm and cool 
With green—drifted snow! 


—Walter R. Adams 


[13] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


RIO ABAJO 

In Rio Abajo ghosts walk, 

At Socorro I saw them, 

Three and twenty brown gowns, rope-girt and sandalled. 
By old Isleta ford, 

Don Francisco de Coronado with his Spanish gentlemen— 
Armor-rust on their satin sleeves, 

Arrow-slits in their leatheren greaves— 

Rode all down the cotton fields 
While the Tegua war-drums thundered. 

Once in the dawn below Belen 
Creaked the broad-wheeled carreta train 
Whose single guttering candle showed 
Where La Conquistadora rode 
To reconquest and old pain. 

Once by this saguan’s ruined arch 
Music its walls absorbed gave back again, 

As in the dusk guitars were playing, 

And on the stamped adobe floor 
The dance still swaying. 

Still is the Alameda sweet 

With sun-steeped petals strewn 

Where late the twinkling monstrance passed, 

Mid gold more lucent than its own, 

To bless the fields again. 

—Mary Austin 


[ 14 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


DROUTH 

I. 


What way shall a man turn 
When earth and sky neglect him? 

Shall he reproach the late-coming rain, 

Laggard, the lights are out and my servants departed? 
Or say to the river, Yesterday, had you run 
1 had been here to receive you? 

If a woman betrays him, there is relief in cursing, 

But where shall he go or stay 
When the rains are unfaithful? 

II. 

The Drouth has taken the land! 

On Mogollon the herd grass breaks in white tinder, 

The Gila shows its bone, and the Mimbres 
Is a dried sinew on a shank too long unburied. 

Over on Kaibab the blacktail 

Browse on the bitter brush and the hemlock branches, 

The round-horned elk have passed over 

By Wolf-creek pass to the lean ranges of Three Rivers. 

Of the deer kind there is nothing left 

Worth the chut of an arrow. 


[ 15 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Around Tsotsil the buzzards 
Are making a merry-go-round; 

The rack-boned cattle 

With their heads toward the stopped water courses 
Are ringed with menacing shadows. 

Nothing fattens now but the carrion eaters. 

The disks of the prickly pear 
Thin and curl like old pasteboard. 

Down all the dark bajadas the hot wind has raped 
The thousand-belled maguey , 

And the White Ladies, the Dasylirion, 

Who used to bow there and courtesy. 

Scattering scent from their laces. 

There’s never a leaf-bird hops in the straked corn, 
Never a flick, in the one-leaved pines, of the pinonero, 
Nor a magpie, bringing the junipers, 

Black and white on its wings, the footsteps of morning. 
And dr-r-ry, dr-r-ry, dr-r-ry churrs the night hawk. 

In the Rio Grande country 

The starved mesas tug at the sky 

Like calves at the stripped dugs of their mothers; 

All day the saffron-colored wind struggles woundedly 
For a few drops, scant and unrelieving 
As tears to the aged. 

Truly, Drouth has taken the land! 


[ 16 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


III. 

Oh, to see the fine rain walking 
Among the Tewa villages 
In her lilac-tinted veils! 

Or the he-rain, upright between the ranges, 

With his moccasins of dark cloud, 

With his wings made out of the far darkness, 

With his wing hollows out of the evening blueness, 
With his voice of the thunder, Thonah! Thonah! 
The voice of the rain standing. 

O fructifying male divinity, 

With the full-shaped cloud under thy feet 
With thy far-flung lightnings, 

Come to us, soaring! 

In Papagueria the mocking-bird 

Is climbing his slender ladder of song 

To the rain home, to the house of the dark cloud; 

Down its viewless steeps his song comes dropping 

Clear notes of roundness for the rain to follow. 

In the west the clouds come up, 

The white house of the rain comes up, 

Thundering and shining, 

Trailing ropes of rainbow the rain comes rushing! 
Over the vast abras that are like charmless women 
Aching to be coupled with the covering storm, 


[ 17 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


The rain comes roaring, 

On the moon-colored playas the uneasy dust 
Is laid by the holy rain. 

Around the roots of the juniper 
It makes slithery yellow runnels, 

It gurgles in the acequia, 

The great corn plant rejoices. 

When shall we see this again! 


IV. 

High on Jemez there’s a great world shrine; 

Looking north toward Pimpije, 

Looking west toward Tsikumu, 

Looking south toward Oku and the Tewa world. 
Deep bite the trails of the many, many moccasins 
Working toward the shrine, 

The white shell shrine of the six world regions 
And the four earth altars. 

In the Tewa villages they are tying prayer plumes 
For the shrines of Jemez. 

They are burning candles to Moorish-eyed Madonnas 
Pranked in Spanish hoopskirts, 

To the carved and painted Santos ,— 

Jose with his flowering rod, 

Jesus crowned with cactus,— 

Little wavering candles. 

They are making meal roads, 

Ancient, holy roads for their prayers to pass. 


[ 18 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


In the Queres villages 

The knowing ones are dancing, 

Cloud-calling head-dresses blossom to the breeze; 

Around the planted fields all the gourds are rattling, 

Roll of poisoned pebbles like the myriad feet of rain! 

They are dancing to the gods of the many-colored zenith, 
To the old, kind gods of the gracious hidden faces,— 
Hidden in the cloud masks, hidden in the rainbow— 

Going to and fro to make the earth more fruitful, 

To the dark cloud people, 

To the white cloud people, 

To the arrow lightning people, 

They are calling to the thunder 
To bring the growing rain. 

They are calling to the Host 
By the drumhead’s mimic thunder, 

On the placid patron Saint in his pink crepe kimono. 

With the silver clast of shells 
Like the rapid rush of rain, 

On the Blessed Ones and martyrs 
Who come flocking to the drums, 

On the new strong gods who make the Roman sign. 
They are calling with their dancing, 

Rain! Rain! Rain! 

V. 


The Drouth is over the land. 

This year six hundred Papagos 
Who were once good cattle owners 
Will be working the mines at Ajo. 

[ 19 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


On Moencopie a thousand flocks, unshepereded, 

Will hear, for the voice of the herder, 

The hunting cry of Mokiach, my lord Puma. 

Dry farmers in Estancia, 

Leaving their locked homesteads, 

Are doubly shamed as they go, by the imploring 
Stark arms of their orchards. 

There is no weather sign watched now 
By the citizens of small towns 

But the tightening lines around the lips of their bankers. 

We are in the Left Hand of God. 

Thus said Our Ancients, 

When of his inknowing thought Awillowillona 
Made the earth mother, made the sky father, 

Set them to spin in the midst of the world-encompassing water. 

As in the Kiva the cloud-priest 

Lifts with his breath the spume of the cloud-bowl, 

So with his beam the Father-All-Father 
Impregnates the foam cap. 

Thus between sea and sun are begotten 

The Great Twin Brethren, Righthand and Lefthand, 

Up through the corn, pulling the dust to be man, 

Pulling man down to the dust. 

By what drouth of the spirit 
Do we wallow so long in the dust, 

Awillowillona! 

—Mary Austin 


[ 20 ] 


THE GOLDEN ST ALllON 


CALLER OF THE BUFFALO 

Whenever the summer-singed plains, 

Past my car window 

Heave and fall like the flanks of trail-weary cattle 
When the round-backed hills go shouldering down 
To drink of western rivers, 

And dust, like ceremonial smoke, 

Goes up from the long-dried wallows, 

Then I remember the Caller of Buffalo. 


Then I think I see him, 

Head feathers slant in the wind, 

Shaking his medicine robe. 

From the buttes of Republican River, 

At Pawnee bluffs 

Offering sacred smoke to the Great White Buffalo. 
Then at dawn, between jiggling curtains, I wake 
To the star-keen note of his deer-shin whistle. 


O Caller of Buffalo! 

Hunt no more on the ancient traces 

Pale and emptied of grong as a cast snake-skin; 

Come into my mind and hunt the herding thoughts 
The White Buffalo 
Of the much desired places. 

Come with your medicine making, 

O Caller of Buffalo! 


—Mary Austin 


[ 21 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


DREAM DUST 

Old Pop Smiley can look across his dreams 

And see a thousand wagons in the dust of many teams; 

Sit still and listen to the sounds of other years, 

And hear the yokes a’creaking on the necks of tugging steers; 

Hear the groans of dying men and smell burnt powder, 

Hear the redskins galloping closer in and louder; 

Know again an arrow’s sting, sense a bullet’s breath, 

Think the thoughts a man thinks and he facing death. 

Old Pop Smiley was a freighter on the Trail— 

Face road-wrinkled and his eyes age-pale, 

He knew the look of wagon tracks toward the western sun; 

How to guard a lone camp when the day was done. 

From Dodge across the prairies to the hills of Santa Fe, 

He knew each sweating peril of the long, lone way. 

Sitting in his chair, now, weak and old and humble, 

Into his old heart the old days tumble. 

Wagon phantoms creaking by, old dream dust— 

Call him to a lone trail. Go he must. 

Old Pop Smiley with his body-heart at rest, 

Follows phantom wagons to a far new West! 

—S. Omar Barker 


[ 22 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE BALLAD OF STEPHEN THE BLACK 

Stephen the Nigger rides up from the South, 

Taste of squart alkili tanging his mouth; 

Banners of Spain boast the strength of his spear, 

Rides he to conquest—the Black Cavalier! 

Tall phantom cities rise up as he comes— 

Dim from far cliffs rolls the booming of drums. 

Seven famed cities of gold, runs the story, 

Far fabled Cibola! Conquest and glory! 

Stephen the Spaniard in helmet and plumes— 

Hark! Now the war drum of Acoma booms! 

Few are his troopers and many their fears— 

Dim jungle memories stir as he hears 

Soft in the distance in weird rhythmic throoming 
Tom-toms that quiver the ground with their booming. 

Strange to his comrades his eyes’ sudden light . . . 

Stephen the Nigger makes camp for the night. 

Oh, in the desert-gray shadow of dawn 
Stephen the Black Man has left them and gone— 

Gone stripped and painted to conquer alone 
Golden walled cities. He finds them but stone— 

Menacing crags in a blue desert sky. 

War drums are beating—must Black Stephen die? 

[ 23 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Down throng brown warriers to slaughter and kill— 
Stephen the Black stands alone, tall and still, 

Helpless, no sword to swing out as they come— 

(Out of his bed-skins he’s fashioned a drum, 

Plumes into medicine bonnets he’s turned, 

Red on his chest the Sun Symbols he’s burned.) 

Soft, as they come down the cliff gaunt and vast, 
Rhythms surge into his blood from the past. 

Throbs from his drum a tattoo weird and low— 
Sound-shadows called from the black long ago. 

Oh, as he chants before Acoma town, 

Dim walls of Time come slow-toppling down! 

Little brown men of the desert’s gray sod 
Hear the strange voice of a long forgot god. 

Down drop their stones and stone hatchets of death 
Blown from their hands is the peace-symbol breath! 

Up the slant trail to the kiva they bear 
Stephen the Shaman, his plumes in the air. 

"We-wah-he!” Peace drums are tooming again: 
Stephen the Nigger has conquered for Spain! 

High in the cliff city, so runs the story. 

Red men bowed down to a black wizard’s glory: 

Stephen the Nigger, throm-toom-tooming low, 
Drumming black ghosts out of dim long ago! 


[ 24 ] 


-S. Omar Barker 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


RIDE 'EM CLEAN! 

Gray hoss, black hoss, pinto, roan 
Broncos tough as the devil’s own— 

I’ve spent life with my legs a-straddle 
Of a buckin’ hoss and a cowboy saddle. 

Some bucks straight and some all around, 

Some snorts skyward, some paws the ground, 

Some, *tis said, weren’t never rode, 

But I stays on (if I don’t get throwed) 

Plumb to the end of the jamboree, 

Ridin’ 'em fair and scratchin’ 'em free! 

Never a bronc that I wouldn’t mount! 

(Now I’m old and ain’t no count). 

Gray hoss, black hoss, pinto, roan, 

Broncos tough as the devils’ own— 

Ride 'em as they come, boy, never mind the weather, 
Give 'em free rein and don’t pull leather! 

Stay if yuh can, but ride 'em clean! 

That’s bronc-stompin '—the kind I mean. 

Yuh’re still winner if yuh git throwed flat, 

Ridin’ of ’em clean, boys . . . life’s like that. 

—S. Omar Barker 


[2J] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE BALLAD OF COWBOY LOU 
Now young Kid Lou was a lad I knew 
In the days of the open range, 

Of a smart-aleck breed till a great stampede 
Worked a sudden and com-plete change! 

Lou, he come from Chi to the old Bar Y 
And he strutted in boots and spurs, 

A kid as green as yuh ever seen, 

And cocky as cockleburrs. 

To hear him bluff, he’d got so tough 
A-ridin’ the cowland trails, 

Stampedes was play to him—and say— 

His whiskers, they was nails! 

Whoopy yee, now son, don’t kid him none, 

Fer he’s a bold bad’un, a song of a gun! 

Until one night with the herd in sight 
Way up on the Cimarron, 

He got so rank that we played him a( prank 
As good as the devil’s own! 

While young Lou slept, old Keech and me crept 
To the tent that was over his head, 

Then we stomped (in fun) like a herd on the run 
And jerked the tent down on his head! 

"Stampede!” we bawls, as the old tent falls. 

Kid Lou lets out one yell, 

And there he goes in his underclothes 
A-runnin’ to beat blue hell! 

Whoopy ye kiyoo, don’t blame pore Lou, 

The chances are you would of run away tool 
[ 26 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


He hits the herd like a thunderbird, 

The cows give one wild stare, 

Then, tails to the sky, away they fly, 

Stampedin’ fer Gawd knows where! 

The Kid in the lead at breakneck speed, 

They thunder a-crost the flat. 

We follows soon and the white old moon 
Saw never a race like that! 

Whoopy ye kiyoo, my tale ain’t through — 

I’m singin’ the ballad of tenderfoot Lou! 

We heads 'em back up a grass-growed track 
Before we sees Kid Lou— 

They’s jest one tree in the whole countree, 

And the Kid he’s found it too! 

Is he climbin’ it? Not a doggone bit! 

He’s settin’ plumb flat on the ground. 

He’s got one knee agin the tree 
And his arms flung tight around! 

As the herd romps by we can hear him cry, 
Above the bawlin’ cow din, 

In a tremblin’ voice: "Don’t hurry me, boys! 
"I’m a’climbin’, boys, quit crowdin’!” 

Whoopy yee ti yo, don’t crowd him so, 

Fer he’s a wil’ cow puncher r’arin’ tuh go! 

When the stampede’s through there sets Kid Lou— 
He thinks he’s up a tree! 

His—er—pants is tore—but we hear no more 
The tales of his bravery! 

Whoopy yee buzbuz, don’t crowd him ’cuz 
Kid Lou ain’t as brave as he figgered he wuz! 

[ 27 ] —S. Omar Barker 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE MAVERICK 

(A Cowboy Song Fer Night Herdin') 

Jest three kinds o’ cattle is all that there be: 

With a yip-hi and hooey along! 

The tame ones and wil’ ones and mav’ricks like me— 
And it’s sundown on the ranges! 

Hot irons mark the wil’ ones in case they should stray, 
But me and the mav’ricks is lost anyway! 

And it y s sundown on the ranges. 

No man nor no god’s got his brand on my hide, 

With a yip-hi and a hooey-along! 

The devil himself dodges trails where I ride. 

And it y s sundown on the ranges. 

Where other folks quit is jest where I begin, 

I’m a wanderin’ cowboy, the maverick’s twin! 

And it y s sundown on the ranges. 

Just three kinds o’ cattle and three kinds o’ men, 

With a yip-hi and a hooey-along! 

I ain’t saw no others since I don’t know when, 

And it y s sundown on the ranges. 

The tame corral kind they will come at yer call. 

With a yip-hi and a hooey-along! 

When the wil’ ones git branded they beller and bawl, 
But us hell-driftin’ mav’ricks you caint’ ketch a-tall! 
When it y s sundown on the ranges; 

[ 28 ] 


—S. Omar Barker 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


WHEN BILLY THE KID RIDES AGAIN 

High are the mountains and low is the plain, 

Where Billy the Kid comes a-ridin’ again. 

Old Juanico sees him—black on the moon, 

And two haggard horsemen come following soon. 

Now topping the rim-rock, now hid in a vale, 

Four ghostly white riders press close on his trail. 

No thudding of hoofbeats, no sound anywhere, 

But nine silent dead men are racing the air. 

Beyond the old courthouse and following fast, 

The tenth pale pursuer springs out of the past. 

Old Juanico sees them—no other eye can, 

The galloping Kid and his strange caravan. 

Fort Sumner to White Oaks, Tularosa to Bent— 

Guant horsemen await him at each settlement. 

For blood’s in the moonmist, as two dozen dead 
Swoop down the dim trails where their killer has fled. 

Gray in the mountains and white on the plain, 

At moon haunted midnight they’re riding again. 

Time shadows the silence in old Lincoln town— 

Look! Billy the Kid comes a-galloping down! 

—S. Omar Barker 


[ 29 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


HOPI PRAYER 

Rain, lean down 
And touch my lands, 

For I have many mouths to feed. 

Sunshine, give me both 
Your hands 

To lift the flowers I need. 

Wind, blow gently 
From the west, 

My harvest time is near. 

Spirit, Thou hast 
Done thy best 
To allay my fear. 

—Charles Beghtol 


[ 30 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


IN OLD TUCSON 
Within a 'dobe wall, 

In yonder desert, sere and bare, 

While purple shadows of the night 
Were falling everywhere, 

And on the air, so soft and warm, 
Faintly came the night-bird’s call, 

I left her standing there, 

Amid the flowers, within a 'dobe wall 
In Old Tucson. 

Her eyes were dark as pools 
In shaded desert wells; 

Her words were like the tones 
Of far-off mission bells; 

The jet-black hue of night 
Was on her glorious hair, 

And still within that garden 
I seem to see her—there 
In Old Tucson. 

And often in my dreams 
She stands within a patio 
In Old Tucson, where 'dobe walls 
Were budded low; 

And in a garden rare the hollyhocks 
Grow straight and tall, 

Within a 'dobe wall, 

Where purple shadows slanting fall— 
In Old Tucson. 

[31] 


—Charles Beghtol 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE SINGING SANDS 

Behold the ever-shifting sands 
Where torrid winds unceasing blow; 

Where in the ages past, perchance 
Were valleys; sunken now below 
These drifting sands, but once the home 
Of ancient people, long forgot. 

Then flowed refreshing waters where 
There lie today, all scorching hot, 

The singing sands. Sometimes they whirl 
In spirals through the desert air— 

On, on, and upward to the sky, 

To hang in pendant whirling there, 

Ten thousand years may bring them back 
To blend with earth’s decay and rust, 
Again to sing, to rise to go— 

The singing sands are mummy-dust. 

A million times within this land 
The course of human life has run. 

The "moving finger” of Old Time 
Has taken note of every one 
Who passed out on the painted sands 
Where hangs aloft the thunderbird 
Against a brazen—molten—sky. 

With incantations none have heard 
The Hopi prays for rain-wet lands; 

The weirdly solemn Indian prayer— 


[ 32 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


The mystic bird seems not in vain! 

Ten thousand years! A thousand links 
Unbroken, make the human chain 
Of those who till the barren sands, 

And sprouting corn breaks through the crust. 
Again they sing— they rise—they go— 

The singing sands are mummy-dust. 

•—Charles Beghtol 


[ 33 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE COVERED WAGON 

Through a mist of tears I watch the years 
Of my youth go by again— 

The golden years when the pioneers 
First peopled an unknown plain. 

By our camp fire’s gleam on a far off stream, 
Like a light in a drifting haze, 

I journey back by the old dim track 
That leads to the vanished days: 

As the phantom trains of the wind-swept plains 
In shadowy outline pass, 

The cottonwood trees stir with the breeze 
That ripples the prairie grass. 

The prairies swoon in the radiant noon, 

And I catch the lost perfume 

Of the cactus blent with the faint sweet scent 

Of the yucca’s waxen bloom. 

The cattle drink at the river’s brink 
At the close of the peaceful day— 

They are dim-seen ghosts of the trampling hosts 
That, far-flung, once held sway. 

I hear the beat of a horse's feet 

And a note from a night-bird’s throat,— 

The deadly purr of a rattler’s whir, 

And the bark of a lone coyote: 

[34] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


And the muffled thrum of the Indian drum 
As it beats a weird tattoo 
For the wild war dance—the old romance 
Still stirs me through and through! 

The trail grows dim . . . Ah, now the rim 

Of the sunset sky bends low, 

And the gray-green sedge at the prairie’s edge 
Is bathed in a blood-red glow! 

The measured breath of my mustang’s feet 
Still lures me down the years— 

And I want to ride back by the strong man’s track 
That I see tonight through tears. 

—Lena Whittaker Blakeney 


[ 35 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SACRED HEART MISSION 

We came upon it suddenly—a place 
Of cloistered peace and quiet, with a quaint 
Old garden where a marble patron saint 
Stands with uplifted hands and holy face: 

One met us there—a man of antique race, 

Like some priest in a picture now worn faint, 

Such as Italian masters loved to paint— 

And as he greeted us with old world grace, 

This Indian land, the oil fields and their litter 
Seemed far away, and distant things seemed near; 
An abbey rose among gray olive trees: 

I saw mauve mountains and the turquoise glitter 
Of an old classic sea—and I could hear 
A bell ring in the gardened Pyrenees. 

—Lena Whittaker Blakeney 


[ 36 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE PIONEER 

With a sigh for the unknown land fevering his brain, 

With a pulse as strong as the engine-heat on the rail; 

With muscle like blue steel hewn for a ship of the main, 

He crossed the Divide, he mastered the wild trail. 

No flood of the dark Missouri, no white-hot plain, 

Could stay the soul of his yearning, could wreck his dream. 
No mountain-storm in its fury, no savage train 
Could daunt or defeat! he followed the flying Gleam. 

He conquered. Men knew his glory, and followed his sign. 

They swarmed, and followed till Earth was full of the tale. 
He rose as a hero looms on a battle-line, 

When the roads are ruts and the whistling balls a gale. 

So was he hardened, heightened, and given his might 
To build the State and lift the Law for light. 

—Henry Meade Bland 


[ 37 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


AT MONTALVO 

There is magic in the sunshine; there is May-time in the sky; 
And soft summery clouds are whitening in their sunny march 
on high. 

Sing the linnets in the arbor, shout the quail upon the hill; 

And a little song of wonder croons the darkly-shaded rill. 

Shine the sylphy purple lilacs, azure springtime’s radiant dower. 
Shapes of sapphire sky thick-woven for a happy lover’s bower. 

Rune the stately sempervirens memories of the olden time; 

And the songs they chant are touched with many a tale of 
merry rhyme. 

Here is joy and here is wonder! Time delays his hurrying flight; 
Lo, the far fields spread and greaten to a glory and a. light! 

Here we hark back to the splendor of the shining names that 
were: 

Saint and soldier; prophet, thinker; poet and enlightener. 

Here from this fair grove of Aidenn, gaze we happy on our way; 
For the trail of the tomorrow will be better today. 

So we loiter with the Dreamer, great Montvalo come again, 
Touched with spirit and fine vision of the joys and hopes of men. 


[ 38 ] 


—Henry Meade Bland 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


WHEN AUTUMN COMES 

(A Desert Study) 

It will be quiet here 

When birds have flown into the haze 

That leads into the south; 

No sound will come to cheer the days 
So filled with autumn’s dingy grays. 

I know that there will be 
A lonely wind; a ghostly thing 
That will come creeping past 
The ocatillas of the spring . . . 

And there will sigh, remembering. 

Out in the silvered wastes 
A coyote’s wail will greet the dawn, 

And fluted throats of reeds 
Will echo back a weird old song 
To match the yucca’s lifeless yawn. 

But stars will still parade 

Around the moon and clouds will pass 

In purple-shadowed gowns 

Across white sands and withered grass 

Whose twisted fingers turn to brass. 

—D. Maitland Bushby 


[ 39 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


INDIAN SIDE SHOW 


(After seeing several commercialized dances) 


Young bucks dancing, dancing, dancing, 

To the beating of a drum; 

Young bucks prancing, prancing, prancing, 

To the thumping on a drum 
Of bright silver and dull gold. 

Once their decorated torsos 
Writhed in unimagined pain, 

While they danced for Him who knows 
The value of a needed rain. 

Old bucks in their hogans dreaming 
Of the sand talk—and of war, 

Of the Thunder-Bird’s high screaming, 

And the Dawn Boy at their door. 

Thanking God for all such chances, 

Thanking while they shout and laugh . . . 

Young bucks doing sacred dances— 

For a dollar or a half! 


—D. Maitland Bushby 


[ 40 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


LAST "COLOR” 

(A f Desert Rat ’ Remembers) 


My hands are brown, 

My hands are old, 

They have forgot 
The touch of gold. 

My feet are tired, 

My feet are still, 

They wander not 
The calling hill. 

My throat grows dry, 

My breaths they bring 
Short gasps—just from 
Remembering. 

My eyes still search 
The ground I trod 
Where I found gold 
And talked to God. 

My heart beats fast; 

Too fast; I know, 

But I must dream 
Before I go. 

—D. Maitland Bushby 


[ 41 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THERESA OF SAN LUIS DEL BAC 

Each day she walks a shadowed path 
Within the convent garden walls 
Until a sculptored Christ calls out 
And hearing it she stops and falls 
Upon her knees to utter there 
Such words as are her daily prayer. 

She is too young, and fresh, and soft, 
For anything but happiness. 

The ebon braids that nestle 'round 
Her brow have never known caress 
In quick delight of lover’s hands 
Upon their sleeping, glowing strands. 

No prince may come to her and know 
The sweetness of her lips, nor stare 
Into her dreaming eyes and speak 
Of other things than beads, nor dare 
To hold her to his breast and tune 
Her pulse to his beneath the moon. 

She has awakened to these things 
And shocks her own austerity 
By mumbling strange desires that drown 
Beneath a black futility. 

She tells cold beads and drys hot tears 
These shall be her’s thru all the years. 

[42 ] 


—D. Maitland Bushby 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


YO-TAN-E-KI 

(Study of a Cocapah Indian) 

Each day he sits and stares 
Into the distance that is great, 

And things are in his eyes 

That words have puzzled to relate. 

Coarse denim clothes him now, 

A chambry shirt, and flop-eared hat 
Which all but hides his eyes, 

And wire-tied shoes worn thin and flat. 

His knotted hands are still 
Within his lap; resigned, it seems, 

To idleness and age, 

And to the vanishing of dreams. 

His rounded shoulders droop 

Like eagle’s wings grown weak with flight 

Far down an unknown sky 

Where darkness is, and death, and night. 

No sigh, no movement shows; 

He might as well be sun-baked clay . . . 

But in his staring eyes 

Are things words were not meant to say. 

—D. Maitland Bushby 


[ 43 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


WOOD CARRIERS OF THE TONTO 

The desert there could tell you much 
Of the slow padding feet that pass 
Across its scorching sands and on 
Until they reach the gramma grass. 

Those distant hills could tell you, too, 

Of bundled sticks that rest upon 

Broad backs of squaws; strong backs that bend 

Beneath their loads of dry pinon. 

And hogans that stand silently 
Could whisper of the sighs they hear 
When straps are loosened from tired brows 
To let the treasured sticks fall clear. 

You have not seen these carriers 
Of wood. You only see fat squaws 
Who peddle pottery and sleep 
With whistling breaths and sagging jaws. 

Go to their Ton to camp with me 
And I will show you squaws who could 
Flash fire through blood of any man . . . 

They are the carriers of wood. 

—D. Maitland Bushby 


[ 44 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


CANCION del VAQUERRO 

The road is long and still tonight 
As I ride to the land of desire. 

The moon and stars are lighting me 
And I sing with a heart of blue fire. 

Two eyes are looking north for me, 

They are dark and are soft with the spring 
That comes to women when they love . . . 

So I ride like the wind while I sing. 

Two arms reach out to hold me close, 

And I know they are smooth and are brown; 

How dear will be their touch again 

When the stars and the moon have gone down. 

Warm lips are waiting there for me 
With a kiss that is sweet as old wine. 

I know she whispers to the night: 

**1 am lost 'till his lips are on mine.” 

The road grows short, my horse keeps time 
To the quickening beats of my heart 
Another mile, just one is left, 

Of the way that was long at the start. 

—D. Maitland Bushby 


[ 45 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


CHARLEY BILL MOSEYS OUT 

They’s lots o’ things to pray for, God, 

When a feller’s rope is draggin’, 

But seems to me they’s only one 
That a 'puncher should be taggin’: 

It’s hopin’ that he’ll ride Your range 
And prove his salt where things is strange. 

So, God, just hear me out tonight, 

For I’ve a hunch I’m due to go. 

I know they’s times that I’ve forgot 
The Good Book’s words, and maybeso 
I’ve turned a trick or two that’s bad, 

Or bet on cards I never had . 

But, God, I reckon you know me. 

I’m like a kid which wants his fun; 

Who plays the game until he drops, 

Or sticks it out 'till things is done. 

I’ve swung my rope both fast and true 
And now I’m signin’ up to You. 

And, God, when all my chips is in 
Just let me drift to t’other side 
Where grass is high and chuck is real 
And know I’m ridin’ by Your side. 

That’s all, I guess. I ain’t no hand 

To talk . . . but You will understand. 


[ 46 ] 


•—D. Maitland Bushby 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE LAST DRUMMER 

Last night I heard an Indian drum 
Throb quaintly through the dark; 

No rhythmic beat but slow and strange. 
A haunting thing and stark. 

I listened well; I knew its voice 
From many nights before 
When it had stumbled with a sob 
Then passed beyond my door. 

Old Kerte lives and speaks to those 
Who, distant as the stars, 

Once sat beside the council fire 
And showed their battle scars. 

A chieftain he, without a tribe, 

Without a wish save death . . . 

It is the soul of him that cries, 

No drum with halting breath. 

His leathered hands brush tenderly 
Upon the withered drum, 

And hopelessly he turns an ear 
To beats that do not come. 

Some night, I know, I will not hear 
The mournful, thrumming call; 

Some night I’ll look up to the stars 
Where drums beat on for all. 


[ 47 ] 


—D. Maitland Bushby 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


DESERT MONKS 

(Impressions of the Sahuarro) 

Here is a master’s etching 
In the crimson flood of dawn— 

A thousand monks are marching 
With a prayer to cheer them on. 

Their pleading arms are reaching 
Ever upward through the haze; 

I think they must be preaching 
For the souls of other days . . . 

Those souls in endless sleeping 
In this silent land of dreams; 

Those souls that God is keeping 
In the pattern of His schemes. 

How rich their place of passing, 

And how sweet must be their sleep 
Where desert monks are massing 
And are marching twenty deep. 

•—D. Maitland Bushby 


[ 48 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


CHAPALA MIDNIGHT 

What spirit is abroad that so bereaves 

The night? No one has sung, nor a guitar been played. 

A hound under the house has whined and bayed 

And a bat is breathing at the window-eaves. 

When I look out the moon among the leaves 
Of corn becomes a curve of metal. I am afraid 
Lest I may hear the whisper of grass-blade 
Growing out of a body that still grieves. 

I lock my door and cringe along the wall, 

Snuffing my candle as I creep to bed; 

And when I hear a fragment of wax fall 
On the table-top I feel at the top of my head, 
Tapping my memory, the bony ball 
Of a finger that was once perfectly made. 

—Witter Bynner. 


[ 49 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


IMPRESSIONS OF THE DESERT 

I. 


Lean coyottes on the hill 

Mock their own wailing 

With ribald laughter 

Their lewd staccato cries excite my ear. 

II. 

The wind explores my hair with lecherous fingers 
They thrust at my throat and breast, 

My mouth is stopped with his kiss, 

I am ravished by the wind. 

III. 


The moon is a forger 
In his high chamber 
Issuing checks on spent emotion 
And signing them with my youth. 

He is a counterfeiter 

Whose false dies stamp 

The spurious moidores of desire. 

The moon a sly proceurer 
Waylays my heart coercing it to lust. 

—Grace Stone Coates 


[ 50 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


FOOTNOTE ON HISTORY: A TALE THE OLD 
FREIGHTER TOLD IN THE 
TOURIST CAMP 

HARPIES 

Joe Pizanthia, desperado, 

Came to Bannack from Mexico; 

When Plummer and Ray had paid their reckoning 
The Vigilantees said: "Greaser Jo!” 

He wounded one man sent to take him, 

And stretched another dead at his feet; 

A mountain howitzer raked his cabin 
And drove him staggering into the street. 

They riddled him, lifted him high on a ridge-pole, 
Set him swinging and shot him more; 

Fired the cabin, lowered the body, 

And flung it back on the blazing floor. 

That should end it: ashes to ashes, 

And eye for an eye, and the story told— 

But Nell, Stell and Josephine panned his embers, 
Squatting and chattering, looking for gold. 

—Grace Stone Coates 


[ 51 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


PETALS OF DARKNESS 

(The Desert) 


The languors of midnight are soft on the starkness 
Of death in the back-curving petals of darkness; 
Earth’s cool exhalations are exquisite breath 
In the indolent, amorous nostrils of death. 

White maid, white moth! 

White flame for the burning 

Of each unto ashes no incense returning! 

The blankness of daylight lays barren the passion 
That redolent midnights in solitude fashion; 

The odors of morning lie heavy across 
A motionless wing and the ashes of loss. 

Black dew, black draught! 

Black billow attaining 

Repletion . . . recession ... no eddies remaining. 

—Grace Stone Coates 


[ 52 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


CAVALIERS 

How do we deem these wide plains commonplace, 

Or think the old hills barren of desire, 

When Romance walks them with uplifted face, 

And Passion leaps them like a living fire? 

Do we forget once streams ran liquid gold, 

And high Adventure stalked the silver wind? 

Heedless of danger, reckless, eager, bold, 

Men rode, and fought, and laughed, and dreamed, and sinned, 
And loved—mad loves, and little loves and light, 

Under the love-made white moons of the South; 

Hard men who fought all day, and danced all night, 

And died at daybreak for a scarlet mouth? 

Are Maximilian, Miramon, Marquez, 

Sweet sound syllables and nothing more? 

"Hill of the Bells”, some pleasant, unknown place? 

Carlotta, but a name not heard before? 

Magruder, Shelby, Maury—where are they? 

The plains forget, the old hills cease to know 
That once high-hearted, arrogant and gay, 

These men of fire rode out to Mexico; 

The sun a glory, and the wind high bliss, 

While dark eyes dimmed, and red lips drooped that day, 

And many a white hand fluttered with a kiss, 

And many a heart broke as they marched away. 


[n] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


They fought, and no man ever died, ’tis said, 

But the wail of some hurt woman rent the air— 

Love is it done? And Romance, is it dead? 

And stalks there no Adventure anywhere? 

—Grace Noll Crowell 


[ 54 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


RED EARTH 

I knew the black earth of the North 
As a child knows its mother: 

The black land that my father owned, 
And I knew no other, 

Until one dazzling sunset hour, 

The South, and its red earth glowing, 
And here was I in a strange bright land 
Little knowing 

That I would take deep root within 
This red soil, and would love it, 

More than I loved the black earth 
With the North wind above it. 

My first sight of the red earth 
Shall never be forgotten: 

Sunset—and a red land 
White with cotton; 

Sunset—and the red hills, 

And wild asters blurring 
Every gully purple where 
A late wind was stirring— 

Always from the North a call 
Through the sweet blue distance; 
Always from my father’s land 
A definite insistence; 

But my roots have struck so deep, 

[ 55 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Deep beyond believing, 

In the red soil of the South— 

I shall not be leaving. 

—Grace Noll Crowell 


[ 56 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


PRESIDIO 

Where this rumpled hill is, 
Sun and rain again 
Breed dark amaryllis, 

Red as blood of Spain. 

Where this crumbling hill is, 
Dust of Dons has lain 
A hundred years. How still is 
Spanish pride here slain! 

Low this haughty hill is, 
Humbling to the plain 
Where red lips of lilies 
Kiss the shoes of rain. 


—Winifred 


Davidson 


[> 7 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


AT SUNSET 

Stark beauty flares across the sky, 

The battlemented clouds take fire— 

Burn bluely, fiercely—and below, 

Where madly painted plains of snow 
Fling back a mist of jewelled light, 

A lone wolf warns of lurking night. 

Dark frigates, silver-sailed and tall, 

Breast heavy seas of changing gold, 

Soft veils of glowing ruby lend 
Delightful shadows as they wend 
Their lovely way above the sun. 

The lone wolf mourns that day is done. 

Gray phantoms lower upon the rose, 

And azure blends with amethyst; 

The plains are dim and coldly blue, 

A pale moon faintly glimmers thru 
The lacy mist. The gray wolf cries 
His loneliness to deepening skies. 

—Rhoda De Long 


[ 58 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


DREAMS . . . DUST . . . 

Star dust 
Gold dust 

Dust from the threshing floor 
Dust from wheels—wheels— 

And the fine burden of the air, 
Paradise-revealing when 
the sun descends. 

Where the winds wander 

in weary lands of no water: 

Mirage! 

The rainbow 

And the rainbow’s end— 

The goal— 

Ships, ships 
Returning— 

Phantom frigates— 

Golden— 

Coming homeward— 
inverted, 
superimposed— 

In the air . . . 

In the dust. 

—Rhoda De Long 


[ 19 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE FIGHT AT PIEDRAS NEGRAS 

I remember the bridge at the Rio Grande 
With the peons and soldier braves 
And the stolid crowds of an alien land— 

The whining beggar with outstretched hand, 
And the dark-haired, wanton slaves. 

I saw a priest and a nun pass by, 

On the bridge at the Rio Grande, 

And a screaming eagle from out the sky 
Unloosed his talons, the swifter to fly, 

Like a sword unsheathed in the hand. 

And there in the jostling, border crowd 
From Piedras Negras town, 

A Caballero cursed me aloud— 

His gringo rival, who halted and bowed 
To a maid in a Spanish gown. 

The watching priest crossed his cavernous breast 
And the nun murmered over her beads— 

That God would give to the people rest, 
Though wolfish men, at wealth’s behest, 

Made war with their secret deeds. 


[ 60 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


And over it all was a sinister light— 

Wild the eagle’s screaming, above, 

And the Piedras Negras streets at night 
Knew brawling deeds of fearful plight 
And little of Christly love. 

Near Eagle Pass I touched my blade 
And fondled my gun for the fight— 

But there on the bridge I met that maid 
As she came from a churchly, dim arcade 
And shrank from my eager sight. 

Yet she whispered to me as if threatened and loth: 
"Go quick, or your life is undone! 

For the Caballero has taken an oath 
To unleash red hate and murder us both!” 

Thus strangely is war begun. 

—Ben Field 


[ 61 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


POPPY GOLD 

I was grubstaked by a woman in the roaring month of March 
As I mined along the hills of San Joaquin, 

Gurgling canyon-water told me that my tongue need never 
parch, 

And I cradled yellow gravel through a screen. 

Love was loaded on my bronco by the side of meat and flour; 
With joy my heart throbbed strongly in my side; 

But the nuggets I was seeking, for my sweetheart and her dower, 
Were elusive,—like the mustang when he shied. 

Then lifted up my vision from the trail, which, winding, led 
To the mesa, and Oh, miracle! Behold, 

My lady of the grubstake lay, an heiress in her bed,— 

The Mesa, studded red with gleaming gold. 

O the poppies, yellow nuggets, brighter than the golden-larch! 
In sagging loads I hung them at my side, 

And the woman who had staked me in the roaring month of 
March 

Would be poppy-crowned, an heiress and a bride! 

—Ben Field 


[ 62 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


HERB-GATHERER 

Herb-gatherer, learned in the lore 
Of root medicinal and leaf-cure, meek, 

Did you, a syracusan boy, once seek 
By Arethusa’s font, Cyane’s shore 
The hemlock and the hellebore? 

Or were you shown by an old monk from Spain 
Here on these Spanish hills long, long ago 
Where yerba santa, yerba buena grow— 

Secret of potions pitiful to pain 

And juice for sleep that never wakes again? 

Now evenings on our rocky heritage, 

You gather, as we walk the tangled way, 

Wormwood and yarrow, fennel, mind and bay. 

Or mornings, as an antidote to age, 

You bring me elderberry tea or sage. 

Herb-gatherer, has your root and leaf and flower 
No other magic than for pain’s surcease? 

No philtre in your brew for Love’s increase? 

For I, who thought him grown to his full height, 
Find him a star-span taller every night. 

—Sara Bard Field 


[ 63 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


WILD FLOWERS 

No surveyor marks your plot, 

Country road or city lot; 

No judge, no precedent of law, 

If your title has a flaw. 

A sudden fall or flight of seeds 
Caught among the withered weeds, 

And all the future days and nights 
You hold fast to squatter’s rights. 

—Sara Bard Field 


[ 64 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


BUT BEAUTY ENDURES 

The Spring is here . . . The Spring is flying. 

Buds are bursting. No one grieves: 

Summer is born when Spring is dying. 

Beautiful as buds are leaves. 

Summer is here . . . The Summer is creeping— 
Scarlet stain in her emerald bed. 

Autumn awakens when Summer is sleeping. 
Beautiful as green is red. 

Autumn is here . . . Oh, the Autumn is banished. 
Birds fly over. Leaves let go. 

Winter appears when Autumn has vanished. 

Beautiful as leaves, the snow. 

The Winter is here . . . Now Winter is sliding 
Down the mountain in foamy suds. 

Spring will burst in where Winter is hiding. 
Beautiful as snow are buds. 

—Sara Bard Field 


[«] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


PACIFIC WINTER 

The quietly sipping rain that sucks the rose 
Dangles from a cloud and then is gone. 

The mists bow low, and falling prone disclose 
Towers and cities made of violet stone. 

The air with one quick flash is lit within, 

And every flower is limpid on her stem, 

And crystal bushes shudder and begin 
To disengage their rainbows gem from gem. 

The trees look downward from green galleries 
And bless the garden with a plumy nod, 

While I in vain, with slow and mortal eyes, 

Run to outrun the presence of the god 
Who paused an instant here and left behind 
His fugitive cameo upon my mind. 

—Hildegarde Flanner 


[ 66 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SUPERIOR PEOPLE 

The hummingbird unwinds before the lilly— 

His little emeral engine never misses. 

The sparrow at his shopping in the grass 
Peers among the poppy’s yellow dishes. 

The thrush, whose legs run under him like spokes, 
Rolls with amber frown about his business, 

And the deliberate snail with roof and rental 
Removes from pansy to the new hibiscus. 

The dove, that kneels and murmurs on the bough, 
Blows a honey-bubble from her throat. 

With a sweet stutter then she flies away 
Leaving the ample day vague and remote. 

—Hildegarde Flanner 


[ 67 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SKY-MEETING 

Alone on the mountain ridge I waited, waited. 

Immensity plunged to the sky and fainted 
In its inverted ocean of gentian-burning, 

Collapsed in cobalt whirls and circled 
Into the high suspended lakes of air. 

Below my feet the wilderness let down 
From spire to spire, fell, hurled, swept, swooned 
And with the pendant waters loosened from the snow 
Finished falling. 

Finished? No not until the vast descent 
Jarred up and tripped upon 
The lower hills with hyacinth backs 
And over these sprawled flying, flung face 
Down. This is the desert. 

Below my feet, with balm sealed, honey-locked, 

The trees are rooted in velocity. 

Slow from the breast of rock they take their life 
And inch by inch put green into the sky. 

Sloping below them pillars of blue snow 
Fall as the sun moves on. 

I am waiting alone in the steeple of the world. 

Where have you wandered on the spacious snow, 

Where bent to peer into infinity 
And there slipped in, 


[ 68 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Where stood to lean on the amber body of a pine? 

Here no bird shouts, no little prophet dares 
To prick the round air with a song. 

Here in the icy wilderness I am alone, 

Alone in the centre of the looping wind, 

Throwing its rings about me, closer coiling, 

Until I can almost see the wind that binds, 

Seeing the fir tree spin between his crystal sides— 

Until I fear I too will spin 

Wound in a spring of winding and unwinding wind 
And shoot in stars of bitter snow 
Into the quite Mohave. 

But suddenly through the maze of storm 
You run and come to find me, 

Dropping to rest at my feet with a cry. 

And we go down to the canyon, down from the wind, 
Down from inhuman pinnacles and towers of space, 

Back to the shallow bells in the brook’s heart, 

Back to earth, 

Counting the sumless snow which is 
Loves number. 

—Hildegarde Flanner 


[ 69 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


VALLEY QUAIL 

These laughing birds have voices like the moon 
That purrs with loosened mildness over space. 

(A little light, a little moth, and soon 

The dikes go out that held the dark in place.) 

A cryptic shout, a low unfleshly mirth 
Rolls without an effort on the air, 

Then drops in balls of ether back to earth, 

Leaving me strained in wonder, half aware 
It was a valley-creature that just flung 
A heavenly taunt from such a narrow tongue. 

—Hildegar.de Flanner 


[ 70 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


DESERT DEATH 

Nothing now but sterile space 

and sand with which to wash my face 

and sun to beat my blood so high 
that I am drunk before I die: 

I have not silence, neither peace, 
nor lonliness in my release 

but joyfully with sand and sun 
I drink deep of oblivion. 

—Charles Henri Ford 


[ 71 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


DESERT 

These are the desolate lands 
The waste and wind-swept spaces 
That kneel and raise burnt lips 
To their gods in the far-off places, 

Peoples long vanished! 

Forgotten race! 

I see the blue haze of their fires! 

Blue-grey smoke of their sacrificial fires! 
fires long cold . . . 
but in the air 
at evening-time 

I see the faint haze float upward 
Rising from the floors of the desert 
rising from the mesas 
lazily lifts thin blue arms . . . 

Gods of infinity! 

Gods of immeasurable space! 
how long! how long! 

This heat 
this sun 

these un tired winds— 

fawning wolves breathing their hot breath 
their hissing breath . . . 


[ 72 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Here all life is death! 

These hummocks of sand 
these flat-topped mesas— 
weird gargoyles leering 
with timeless detachment . . . 
through the shimmering heat 
through the crystalline cold 
under an incandescent sun 
under the black of a nubian night . . . 

Leering in the face of an inept moon 
dizzily turning about Earth 
insanely darting from cloud to cloud 

This gargantuan travesty! 
like a sword en guarde at the throat of man 
This threat 
Dreamers of the dust! 
what gifts 
what gods 

Dreamer and gift and god are gathered 
at last worshipper 
and god 

god and worshipper 
are one . . . 


[ 73 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Ringing eloquence! 

"The people are gathered to their gods 
The gods are drawn to their people!” 
they have* lain down together 
in the dust . . . 

Heroic deed! 

Worshipper! 

Answered prayer! 

The winds carry you upward 
to soar 
to whirl 
to dance 
to sing 

in the far dream-heavens 
with your gods . . . 

These scourging winds 
these architects of time 
these messiahs . . . 

You hearts 
you brains 
you hands 

that contrived with curious skill 
that planned with intricate reason 
that hated 
loved 
killed 
feared 
worshipped 
despoiled 
[ 74 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


you have become tools 

tools for the winds to hammer with 
you have become bludgeons 
you have become sharp knives . . . 

The winds are carving their cathedrals 
their valhallas 
their parthenons 
their battlements 
their pyramids 

carving them with kings and harlots 
priests and gods 
master and slave 

Driven by the scourging winds 
sifted by their hands 
winnowed 

carried to the high places 
dashed down 
reviled and mocked . . . 

Dust that walked proudly! 

Gods and dreams and dust 
have lain down together. 

—Whitley Gray 


[ 75 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


CACTUS BLOOMS 

Lo, what wild beauty the dawn-lights disclose! 
Beauty, new born 
Of the clustering thorn, 

Silkenly scarlet and satiny rose. 

Life, so I muse, like a cactus grows, 

Thorny (God’s pity!) with infinite woes; 

But beauty and love 
Are the blossoms thereof, 

Silkenly scarlet and satiny rose! 

—Hilton Ross Greer 


[ 76 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


A ROAD OF MIDNIGHT PAGEANTS 

This is no common roadway, Spain and France 
Sowed every sentient clod with brave romance; 

The cloven hoof-prints of the buffalo 
Outlived its course three centuries ago— 

A day when lures of water edged the wind; 

The Lipans stalked them, swift and moccasined; 
Conquistadores and their followers pressed 
Sternly toward empire in a fabled west; 

Haply along it, as an azure flame, 

Maria de Agreda’s spirit came; 

The gaunt Franciscan next, with holy urge, 
Bare-footed, at his waist the knotted scourge: 

Then prairie schooners of the pioneer 
Led Anglo-Saxons to their last frontier. 

Here surged the Longhorn herds in bellowing hosts, 
Spurred on, with shouting, to the trading posts; 

And gay vaqueros, singing, galloped down, 

Dreaming of dusk-eyed beauty in the town. 

Missions and forts have crumbled. This remains, 

A memoried roadway through the Texas plains; 

To either side, the prairie, like a sea, 

That scorns a shore, rolls vast and billowy; 

And ever, when the day fails, overhead 
Stretches another prairie, starred and dread, 

There often, at the hushed and mystic hour, 

[ 77 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


The great moon blows, a silver cactus flower, 

And in its light dead centuries walk free 
On this old road in ghostly pageantry. 

—Hilton Ross Greer 


[ 78 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


IN THE BRACKEN 

Scent of pine on the hill tops, 

Rush of the mountain breeze, 

And long, deep slopes of bracken fern 
Like sun-lit, emerald seas. 

Gray old rocks where the lizards hide 
And chattering chipmunks play; 

Where the brown quail leads her timorous brood 
Through the fonds that bend and sway. 

Home of the doe and her spotted fawns— 

Shyest of woodland things— 

Haunt of the hawks that dip and dive 
On circling fearless wings. 

The skies bend down with a deeper blue 
Where the white clouds drift and hover; 

And the tall peaks drowse in the golden haze 
That dapples their forest cover. 

The needles whisper an endless song 
As the brown cones bend and nod; 

"O rest, O rest, with the bracken and pine 
In the strong green hills of God.’* 

—Sharlot M. Hall 


[ 79 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE COLORADO RIVER 

Long, silent leagues of ever-shifting sand, 

White-heat and shimmering to the distant hills 
Where wheeling slow the whirwind dips and fills, 

Or beckons Ike some shadowy, giant hand. 

Gray wisps of greasewood and mesquite that stand 
In withered patches like an old man’s beard, 

Ragged and grizzled . . . nearer, dark and weird, 
Swift to posses and loath to give again. 

Foam-ribbed and sullen, staggering with the weight 
Of forests spoiled, he takes his price in full, 

Stern toll for every drop to land and men; 

In witness there . . . Poor pawn of love or hate! 
Caught in a drift a grinning human skull. 

—Sharlot M. Hall 


[ 80 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


BOATS IN A FOG 

Sports and gallantries, the stage, the arts, the antics of dancers, 
The exuberant voices of music, 

Have charm for children but lack nobility; it is bitter earnestness 
That makes beauty; the mind 
Knows, grown adult. 

A sudden fog-drift muffled the ocean, 

A throbbing of engines moved in it, 

At length, a stone’s throw out, between the rocks and the vapor, 
One by one moved shadows 

Out of the mystery, shadows, fishing-boats, trailing each other, 
Following the cliff for guidance, 

Holding a difficult path between the peril of the sea-fog 
And the foam on the shore granite. 

One by one, trailing their leader, six crept by me, 

Out of the vapor and into it, 

The throb of their engines subdued by the fog, patient and 
cautious, 

Coasting all around the peninsula 

Back to the buoys in Monterey harbor. A flight of pelicans 
Is nothing lovelier to look at; 

The flight of the planets is nothing nobler; all the arts lose virtue 
Against the essential reality 

Of creatures going about their business among the equally 
Earnest elements of nature. 

—Robinson Jeffers 


[ 81 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


HANDS 

Inside a cave in a narrow canyon near Tassajara 
The vault of rock is painted with hands. 

A multitude of hands in the twilight, a cloud of men’s palms, 
no more, 

No other picture. There’s no one to say 

Whether the brown shy quiet people who are dead intended 

Religion or magic, or made their tracings 

In the idleness of art; but over the division of years these careful 
Signs-manual are now like a sealed message 

Saying, "Look: we also were human; we had hands, not paws. 
All hail 

You people with the cunning hands, our supplanters 
In the beautiful country; enjoy her a season, her beauty, and 
come down 

And be supplanted; for you also are human.” 

—Robinson Jeffers 


[ 82 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


HOODED NIGHT 

At night, toward dawn, all the lights of the shore have died, 
And a wind moves. Moves in the dark 

The sleeping power of the ocean, no more beast-like than man¬ 
like, 

Not to be compared; itself and itself. 

Its breath blown shoreward huddles the world with a fog; no 
stars 

Dance in heaven; no ship’s light glances. 

I see the heavy granite bodies of the rocks of the headland, 
That were ancient here before Egypt had pyramids, 

Bulk on the gray of the sky, and beyond them the jets of young 
trees 

I planted the year of the Versailles peace. 

But here is the final unridiculous peace. Before the first man 
Here were the stones, the ocean, the cypresses, 

And the pallid region in the stone-rough dome of fog where 
the moon 

Falls on the west. Here is reality. 

The other is a spectral episode; after the inquisitive animal’s 
Amusements are quiet; the dark glory. 

•—Robinson Jeffers 


[ 83 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


EVENING EBB 

The ocean has not been so quiet for a long while; five night- 
herons 

Fly shorelong voiceless in the hush of air 

Over the calm of an ebb that almost mirrors their wings. 

The sun has gone down, and the water has gone down 

From the weed-clad rock, but the distant cloud-wall rises. The 
ebb whispers, 

Great cloud shadows float in the opal water. 

Through rifts in the screen of the world pale gold gleams and 
the evening 

Star suddenly glides like a flying torch, 

As if we had not been meant to see her; rehearsing behind 

The screen of the world for another audience. 

—Robinson Jeffers 


[ 84 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SHORE ROAD 

Star up and sun down 
And the ruffled water! 

The young dusk is kissing 
The day’s last daughter. 

Emerald and copper. 

Then silver foil— 

The sea mocks the roadway 
Where dust-pots boil. 

We, on the roadway, 

Wind the long waves, 

Where silence-slippered evening 
Walks among the graves 

Of all its selves that once were. 
Poised light lingers, 

But drab has covered silver 
The width of two fingers. 

Drab grows drabber, 

Followed by jet, 

Gulls cry a poignance 
None can forget. 

Sudden, through darkness, 

Piers leap a-light— 

Thin, jeweled bangles 
On the wrists of night. 

[85 ] 


—Siddie Joe Johnson 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


HERON FLIGHT 

There has been shadow, 
Now the substance lies 
Slow above water, 
Paralleling skies. 

There has been lifting 
Into curved flight— 
Aimlessly certain 
On the taut light. 

There has been fumbling 
And a sharp grace, 
Drawing strange features 
On a blue face. 

There has been motion 
Stilling to rest, 

As water takes heron 
Back to its breast. 


—Siddie Joe Johnson 


[ 86 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


BUFFALO-GAP 

Couched in the arms of quiet hills, she lies 
Dreaming beneath the oak grove’s checkered shade 
Of days when bison thundered through the glade 
And coyotes called against the midnight skies. 

In vain the crumbling hills await replies 
To Indian drums that beat the last chamade; 

Silence and time have heaped a barricade 
Of years against their savage battle cries. 

Old legends linger ’round the valley yet; 

An old house totters, and a new one 
Raises its proud and unscarred walls instead 
To shelter the new farmers, who forget 
The old brown men that gossip in the sun, 

The old hen scratching up an arrow head. 

—John H. Knox 


[ 87 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


GRASSHOPPER 

Perhaps he knows by what a fragile thread 
The sword’s inexorable judgment hangs 
Sharp and implacable above his head; 

But hearing always the astute harangues 

Of sages may grow wearisome to one 

Tortured with song, who, knowing night impends, 

Drinks at the golden goblet of the sun 

And makes his music while the blade descends. 

I saw him begging in the winter’s blast; 

I heard the pious ants make their replies: 

"Go, feast upon your summer songs, or fast!” 
Frozen, beneath a sheet of snow, he lies, 

The winged singer of a season, dead— 

While creeping ants drone axioms by his bed. 

—John H. Knox 


[ 33 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


PLAINS 

There is a kinship of the plains and sea: 

The undulating waves of earth assail 
The bulwarks of the sky, as in a gale 
The ocean storms her blue serenity. 

Lone waters, and the barren plains, these two 
Vast and conflicting elements that lie 
Pressing their naked breasts against the sky, 

Keep with the stars a common rendezvous. 

The spacious silence that the seaman knows 
The plain bequeaths her children, as they guide 
Their living argosies across the wide 
Sky walled expanse, the heritage of those 
Whose lives like the unresting tides are spent 
Beneath the star-encrusted firmament. 

—John H. Knox 


[ 89 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


ARROW-HEAD 

Long since, the dark and crafty hands that wrought 
From the unyielding flint this spear of stone 
Have laid aside their weapons and have sought 
The fields where phantom warriors walk. Alone 
Of all his art, on which the years have spent 
The violence of decay, one relic lies 
Intact above his dust, a monument 
To hands that killed, and Death that never dies. 

Surely love stirred within that savage breast, 

And surely those dark hands fashioned with care 
Kind gifts of peace, forgotten by that fate 
Unjust and pittiless, at whose behest, 

Like an heraldic shield, his ghost must wear 
This symbol of his hunger and his hate. 

—John H. Knox 


[ 90 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE GRASS 

I lean my ear among the disconsolate grasses 
And listen to their murmurings, as along 
The field of green, uplifted spears there passes 
A young breeze burdened with their ancient song: 
"Wind-bitten on the slopes of rocky highlands, 

Lush in the warm recesses of the glade, 

Slow, like the architects of coral islands, 

We weave the shrouds of cities, blade by blade. 

"Though now man’s frail and arrogant feet may tread 
In his brief triumph over us, at last 
He shall go down beneath us to his bed. 

And when the pageant of his pride has passed 

To the inevitable dust, our palls 

Shall gleam above his cities’ ruined walls.” 

•—John H. Knox 


[ 91 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


DESERTED KIVA 


I. 

Along the star-enchanted aisles of night 
I have known prodigies of sight and sound, 
Where shadows melted in the mystic light 
Drip from the silver trees upon the ground. 

I have cried out at starlight over snow, 

And trembled, seeing a wizard moon make gold 
The sea’s stark waste, but never shall I know 
More magic than these kiva shadows hold. 

Here in the compass of this earthen cist, 

Gods regal as Osiris and more dread, 

Have bowed before the worm’s prevailing might; 
But Time, who feeds upon their eucharist, 

The wine of darkness and oblivion’s bread, 

Blots not their ancient sorceries from the night. 


II. 

In some dim corner of my heart there broods 

A silence like this silence, harboring 

The ghostly music of ancestral moods 

Not quite forgotten. When the dark doors swing 

Upon this atavistic crypt, I pay 

Dumb homage at each mystic avatar 

Of twilight gods now fallen in decay, 

Whose cerements these turbid shadows are. 


[92 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


How fragile are the walls that sunder us, 

O ancient devotees! This sham veneer 
Shields lightly the dawn-man’s raw soul below; 
Crack but the polished crust, and thunderous, 

Out of this hollow darkness I shall hear 
The drums that beat a thousand years ago. 

—John H. Knox 


[93 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


INDIAN BLOOD 

I have dreamed the dreams of a dying race 
That was old when the world was young, 

I have thrilled to the quivering spirit-notes 
Of a song that was never sung. 

I am tired of your whimpering, grovelling creeds, 

They are hollow through and through; 

So I’ve turned from the god in your Great White Church 
To the God that my fathers knew. 

For I’ve heard you pray to the Lord of Love 
Who fashioned the hell you dread; 

And then go down to the market place 
And barter your souls for bread. 

Your icy pallor is on my brow, 

Your blood is my spirit’s brand; 

But the flame that burns in my inmost soul 
Was lit by a chieftain’s hand. 

And the forest calls and I soon shall go 
Where the last of my kindred tread; 

For I’d rather die with a dying race 
Than live where the light has fled. 

—Lilith Lorraine 


[ 94 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SOUTHWEST 

I could sing the lay of the broad paved way, 

For I’ve travelled fast and far; 

I have known the feel of the throbbing wheel 
And the thrill of a racing car. 

I could chant with glee of the wintry sea, 

Where the great ships toss and roll; 

Of the white-winged planes on the airy mains 
Where the storm-gods take their toll. 

But I’ve caught the zest of the Great Southwest, 
In the realm of the rolling sand, 

Where the lonesome note of the wild coyote 
Floats over the Rio Grande. 

So I’ll tell the tale of the new-blazed trail, 

Where the last frontier is won, 

Where a man may ride at his partner’s side 
Right into the setting sun. 

And I’ll catch the tune of the desert’s croon 
As she hums in the blazing glow, 

Hear the cowboy’s song as he rides along 
On the road to Mexico. 

You may write the rimes of your gilded times, 
You may take the fame it brings; 

But I’ll do my best by the Great Southwest 
In the land of the Cattle Kings. 

[ 95 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


So I’m going home where the horned-toads roam, 
And the glistening rattlers glide; 

And I’ll build me a shack in the blizzard’s track 
And buy me a horse to ride. 

—Lilith Lorraine 


[? 6 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE RANGER 

He’s as tall and straight as ever, 

And his eyes are just as bright, 

But he has a look about him 
Like an eagle poised for flight. 

He’s staring out to the westward 
As he sniffs the wintry air, 

And he mutters, "Must be something 
A’brewing Over There.” 

For he’s rode with the Texas Rangers 
When the trails were wild and dim, 

And whenever folks had trouble 
They always sent for him. 

So he’s oiling his rusty rifle, 

For he’s taking the trails again, 

As a shot rings out in the darkness— 

The call of the Spirit-Men. 

And he’s not the kind for shirking 
At the beat of the final drum; 

When the Captain calls: "Attention!” 

And the Boss of the Ranch says: "Come!” 

And just outside in the bushes, 

A shadowy pony waits, 

A horse that the Big Boss sent him 
To ride to the Golden Gates. 

[ 1 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


So, we’ll toll no dirge at his passing, 

But we’ll fling him a rousing cheer . . . 
When he rides with the Phantom Rangers 
Over the Last Frontier. 


—Lilith Lorrainf 


[ 98 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SUNSET 

Vivid autumn colors 
Thrown across the sky, 

Ocatillas swaying, 

Winging birds coast by. 

Penciled points of yucca 
Stab the bleeding rose, 

Vain attempt to utter 
All the desert knows. 

—Catherine Stuart Macleod 


[ 99 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


YET AUTUMN MOURNFULLY 

If flesh were only withered skin 
Tented on my bones, 

And hair a matted burlap-brown 
Companion stones. 

I would not hold with disregard 
Fellowship and host 
Who pattern chambers of the dead 
More carelessly than most. 

Cathedral dark, the desert caves 
Moaning with the wind 
Flave seen what ages decompose 
No silence will rescind. 

Yet autumn mournfully will chant 
Dirges that appeal 
To hearts that may not cogitate 
What senses may not feel. 

•-Norman Macleod 


[ 100 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


CONIFEROUS 

(Petrified Forest, Arizona) 

Rusted with iron 
And manganese, 

They are no longer 
Trees. 

Carborundum 
And diamond dust 
Have illustrated 
An agate crust. 

From centuries 
Of primitive. 

Only inanimate 
May live. 

Alternately, 

I have chosen: 

Better decay 
Than be frozen. 

—Norman Macleod 


[ 101 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


HAUNTED HOGAN 

Where the dark ridges swirled 
In a twist of smoke, 

And arroyo curled like a whip 
And broke. 

But the torrent of sand, 

The sweep of air, 

Are the only vestiged 
Currents there. 

The leaves are withered . . . 

The drouth is worse 
Than a Navajo chieftain 
Wearing a hearse. 

None will ever come near 
The arroyo’s side, 

For a moccasined man 
In a hogan has died. 

White men may flourish 
And march in train, 

But Navajos come to a dead man 
Never again! 

The wind will be chanting 
Funeral song, 

And the wind and the sun 
And death are strong. 

[102] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


He will be better the rouge 
And the blue 
Of the cliff and the sky 
And dust and dew. 


»—Norman Macleod 


[ 103 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


HOTEVILLA 

The Indians dance for tourist trade 
And speak an alien tongue 
But dream of tattered years ago 
When their tribe was young. 

With stolid pride and bitter heart 
They know the race is dying . . . 

Religion, a commercial right 
Gods are exercising. 

—Norman Macleod 


[ 104 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SONG FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGIST: AZTEC 

Oh, softer than silver 
Less than dust 
I have taken a mood 
In trust. 

But pieces of turquoise 
Broken shards 
Decomposing of Time 
Retards. 


—Norman Macleod 


[ 105 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SNOW ON THE PAINTED DESERT 

Before this fragrant creamness 
Retrogresses, 

The desert knows what 
Silver blesses. 

Between carulean skies 
And earth below 
There is nothing but stark 
Reflected snow. 

The cocky crows pant by, 

On heaving wings; 

But it is the whiteness 
Which sings. 

And if it were not 
A cold, colliding name, 

I do not think the cactus could 
Break to flame. 


•—Norm an Macleod 


[ 106 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


IMPRESSION 

they get pools 

of sapphire with diamond dust in 
eyes, where nevada runs like 
asphalt . . . centipedelike 
trains crawl on spatial 
infinitude, they get that way 
o when crank sky of lemon 
sways dizzily 
and dust clouds rise; 
not even sahuara prays for man 
where salt waves heap 
horizon ... » 

purity of bones, 
you decorate the octoroon land. 

—Norman Macleod 


[ 107 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


CATTLE-TOWN 

sprawling like a drunk sailor 

in a maritime saloon; cattle town 

gone wrong, weep sister 

a cattle rutting hellshotted town 

gone wrong, the santa fe reeking with 

capitalism and smug cigars invades 

after the drouth 

they built hotels respectable, 

eating houses representable 

and telegraph wires buzzed where only 

roundup bellowings challenged 

the waste 

before America came with money, 
wild west stories. 

when the cattle towns went wrong. 

—Norman Macleod 


[ 108 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


QUATRAINS 
Chief Mountain 

A wedge of black in sunset red; . . . 

Old Chief Mountain lifts its head. 

Blood-stained in outlines colder, 

The sun dies on its shoulder. 

Skirmish 

Inquisition of mountain peaks 
Is nothing when the desert speaks 
With winds of fury sweeping home 
The points debated by the loam. 

Cactus Bloom 

Now that cedars, taper-wise, 

Tincture delicately skies . . . 

Smokes of fragrance darkly brood 
Over cactus torpitude. 

At Hovenweep in Cajon Canyon 

The lightning is a silver in the sky, 

The stars are shingle nails . . . 

But when the wind and scarlet desert vie, 

God’s architecture quails. 

—Norman Macltiod 


[ 109 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


CITY IN TAOS 

There is a city in Taos 
More than the buckling peaks, 

More than clouds that pillar where 
Black heaven speaks. 

Dark as the chiseled crags 
Splintered in shelving rock, 

There is a graver medium, 

More than stranger stock. 

Out of the square-top pueblos 
Past the Ranchos de Taos. 

There is a pungent fragrance 
Of heavy loss. 

—Norman Macleod 


[HO] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


YEAR OF VERBENA 

The long hours slide into eternity, 

The desert lies in somnolent unawareness 
Wrapped in circumambient warmth. 

It is the Year of Verbena 

And the sands are defiant with beauty, 

Delirious with insatiable laughter, 

Magenta laughter of verbena, 

Scarlet laughter of cactus. 

A little whimpering breeze 

Rips along the cactus spines 

And stirs the verbena with indefinable warning. 

The long hours slide into eternity, 

The desert lies in seeming somnolence 
But in her fecund womb she laughs 
The laughter of coming springs. 

—Arthur Truman Merrill 


[HI] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


TAOS 

Dawn,—A turquoise steed, neighing, 

Champing, striking fire with horny hoofs, 

Flinging white scud from bitted teeth,— 

Comes charging down an orange trail, 

Charging down from No-Man’s Land, 

Charging down to Taos,— 

To Taos, The City-with-an Ancient-Wall 
Peacock-skied; 

Black-basaltic-mountain, castellated Taos, 

Towered and battlemented Taos; 

Where centenarian mumblers eat up Time 
And years slip by unnumbered; 

Where Koshare, Makers of Delight, 

Trick jocund Day, flamingo-tinted, 

Into the arms of Night; 

And white-robed, love-lorn boys 
Nightly yearn in Song unsyllabized 
To a persimmon-colored Moon 
Swimming in chrysolite Sky-seas,— 

Ah, where such another Dawn? 

Another Moon?—Another Taos? 

•—Arthur Truman Merrill 


[ 112 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


EUREKA 

O hunters for gold, 

Gone are your trails, 

Lost and forgotten; 

Deserted the hills; 

But here and there 
Now and then 
One finds monuments 
To your dead hopes,— 

Holes, and caves, tunnels and shafts,— 

Silent, sullen, 

And if one’s throat goes dry, 

And his heart contracts, 

In sympathy for men he never knew, 

Then, the shades of the hunters for gold 
Who slipped out unnoticed, 

Will come to pluck his sleeve 
And share with him their secret,— 

That, at a certain magic instant, 

When the day’s work is done, 

On every monument, 

Limmed in the pure gold of the sun, 

He who understands 
May read: "Eureka!” 

—Arthur Truman Merrill 


[ 113 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


MIDNIGHT ON THE PRAIRIES 

The timid herd lay bedded down for sleep; 

Far away, the loafer wolf-pack on the trail 
Howled dismally; 

Nearby, a bunch of hungry coyotes 
Yip-yapped their lonesome wail. 

The dozing cattle stirred uneasily; 

Mother cows moved closer to their young 
Protectingly. 

A scouting breeze rippled across the plains, 

Paused by the wakeful herd and laughed at their unrest, 
And as a willful sprite in sportive jest 
Like fury, whirled a rolling weed 
Into their midst 

The cattle rose as one, trembling with fear, 

And huddled for a moment before the maddened run. 
Hoarse bull-bellows mingled with the moan 
Of frenzied mothers, as their young 
Fell trampled underfoot. 

Amid the clash and clack of striking hoofs and horns, 
Arose the thunder, as they plunged on and on 
And fell with sickening thuds 
Into the gaping canyon, 

Staining the mauve to purple, the rose to crimson, 

And tarnishing the gold. 

—Vaida Stewart Montgomery 
[1H] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE COTTON PICKER’S SONG 

A dreamy sky is overhead, a drowsy earth below, 

And through the fields of ripened corn the lazy breezes blow; 
The autumn fires begin to burn, the wooded hills along, 

And from the cotton field I hear the cotton picker’s song: 

"Hunny, I’m all out an’ down, 

Hunny, I’m all out an’ down, 

No money in my pus 
No credit, which is wus, 

Hunny, I’m all out an’ down.” 

Between the rows of snowy white I see him bending low, 

As in and out among the stalks his nimble fingers go, 

Roll after roll of snowy white into his sack he flings, 

And times his every motion with the doleful song he sings: 

"Hunny, I’m all out an’ down, 

Hunny, I’m all out an’ down, 

Dey won my di’mun ring— 

My watch an’ ev’ything, 

Hunny, I’m all out an’ down.” 

What cares he for the dreamy sky that bends above his head? 
What care he for the woodland where the leaves are turning red? 
He cares not what the past has brought, nor what the future 
brings, 

He only cares about to-day, and so he works and sings: 


[in] 


THE GOLDEN ST ALLION 


"Hunny, I’m all out an’ down, 

Hunny, I’m all out an’ down, 

Dey put me in de jail, 

Dey wouldn’t ’low me bail, 

Hunny, I’m all out an’ down.” 

Is this a song that rises from a bosom filled with woe, 

Or does he sing to cheat the time? Not so, my friend, not so! 
Upon the pinions of the wind those words are borne along 
Until they reach a dusky fair who understands the song: 

"Hunny, I’m all out an’ down, 

Hunny, I’m all out an’ down, 

I’m sick an’ in de bed 
Wid de mis’ry in my head, 

Hunny, I’m all out an’ down.” 

—Whitney Montgomery 


[ 116 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


HE-MAN 

My pony’s in the pasture an’ my saddle’s in the shed, 

An’ my chaps are where I hung ’em on a peg upon the wall, 
An’ I’m in a blamed hospital, with a nurse beside my bed, 

An’ the Doctor says it’s likely that I won’t get up at all. 

But the Doc don’t know a he-man when he sees one, you can bet, 
An’ the Doc don’t know a cowboy that is made of grit and steel; 
If I’ve got to kick the bucket—but I ain’t surrendered yet— 
I’ll kick it with my boots on an’ a spur upon each heel. 

Pitch me my cordorroys an’ my old blue flannel shirt; 

It’s me for windy prairies where the lean cow-mammas bawl— 
Ain’t my side a-hurtin’? Yes M’am, but it’s hurt, dad blame 
you, hurt! 

I’ll die out in the open, if I’ve got to die at all! 

—Whitney Montgomery 


[ 117 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SEA-WIND ON THE PRAIRIE 

When wild geese mutter from the smoky sky, 

And tawny leaves drift slowly to the ground, 

The sea-wind leaves the waves; its strident cry 
Upon the prairie slopes begins to sound. 

O how it mourns along the dim ravine, 

Where gray wolf-shadows darken and are gone, 

And how the tortured mesquites twist and lean, 
While, like an angry tide, the wind beats on! 

The wash of waves throbs in the prairie cane, 

To die away along the upland heath, 

And now a crash of doom sounds on the plain, 

The snarl of breakers as they bare their teeth. 

And lonely folk start from their inland sleep, 

In terror for men drowning in the deep. 

—Berta Hart Nance 


[ 118 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


PRAIRIE LOVE 

There will be days when from the steel-blue north 
Great winds will bellow in an endless file, 

And freeze the shrinking earth as they rush forth, 

And drive the water-birds for many a mile; 

There will be April days, dim with mock rain. 

And swept with songs of blue-birds, honey-sweet, 

And fair with prairie clover, and with cane, 

With gay blue-bonnets, and with sea-green wheat; 

There will be days of searing August light, 

To twist the grass, and amber skies, too clear; 

And days when sharp frost paints the long slopes white, 
While joyous field larks carol, far and near. 

There will be sun, dear love, and bitter sky, 

But we will be together, you and I. 

—Berta Hart Nance 


[ 119 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


IN PRAISE OF THE GUADALUPE 

If you have seen the Guadalupe, 

The diamond-bright, the diamond-fair, 

The cypresses, a feathered troop, 

The banks of fern that nestle there, 

The huiache groves that scent the air, 

To meaner streams you may not stoop 
If you have seen the Guadalupe. 

If you have known the Guadalupe, 

The diamond-bright, the diamond-clear, 

The cedar hills, a goodly troop, 

The birds that carol through the year, 

The dappled groups of stealthy deer, 

To far-famed streams you cannot stoop 
If you have known the Guadalupe. 

If you have loved the Guadalupe, 

The diamond-bright, the diamond-rare, 

With emerald pools, a wondrous troop, 

And lacy falls that flutter there, 

And ripple-songs that fill the air, 

To other streams you will not stoop 
If you have loved the Guadalupe. 

—Berta Hart Nance 


[ 120 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


MARCH PLOWING 

The sun had failed an hour ago. 

Now, from a sky malign and sullen, 

Ironic wind began to sow 
A sudden and ambiguous pollen. 

He watched the cloven acres flow 
Dark from the share to drink it under, 

And knew a blundering, boyish wonder 
What one reaped who planted snow. 

For was it foolish to surmise 

That yeoman grain, robust and yellow, 

Would find this pale wheat of the skies 
A comfortless, cold bedfellow? 

. That year he watched the upland frothing 
To golden harvest, dimly grieved 
That the wind’s seed had come to nothing 
More than other years had sheaved; 

Yet with a somber prescience knowing 
Man should be glad if any field 
Brought to the scythe no alien yield, 

Changeling, not of his sowing. 

—Ted Olson 


[ 121 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


PAYMENT IN FULL 

So much he wrested from this miser land: 

A meadow plot, a square of furrowed loam, 

And the forlorn, weed-cancered waste where stand 
The rotting timbers that were once his home; 
These, and a decade’s harvests—wheat and hay 
To feed his meager stock—not over much. 

One stack remains, so black now with decay, 
Even the deer marauders will not touch. 

Surely the drab years’ dearth, the toil, the ache 
Of sleepless war with hail and drouth and blight 
One might have deemed were fee enough to make 
This trivial ledger entry read aright. 

Not so; the usurer land does not relent. 

It has his bones at last. It is content. 


—Ted Olson 


[ 122 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


FORFEIT 

Now has another year of roses 
Scattered its bright, sphemeral flame 
Through river-bottom and arroyo 
In the high country whence I came. 

And I have never watched one petal 
Blown like a frail and lyric word 
Down the immutable emerald silence 
Of forest aisles, unseen, unheard. 

First the wild currant, then the rose, 

Then aster, sunflower, golden-rod, 

Moving in lovely, brief procession 
To dark oblivion in the sod. 

The fields are withered now to umber; 

River and sky are ashen, chill; 

Though still with reminiscent fires 
The aspen kindles draw and hill. 

There will be other years and roses; 

Surely I shall return at last 

And watch their dear, familiar magic 

Moving in visible music past. 

One twelve-month of my store—one summer— 
Blown out like flame, beyond recall. 

Why must I always think its blooming 
Was somehow loveliest of all? 


[ 123 ] 


—Ted Olson 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE GENERAL OF CERRO GRANDE 

How many tombstones in the graveyard mark 
The names of those you have sent adventuring? 
How many voices that one time could sing 
Have been hushed by you to silence and the dark? 

You come, a conqueror, into our town. 

But I remember—you are not alone! 

For other conquerors, other shouts were loud,— 

And now—their names are graven on a stone! 

—Idella Purnell 


[ 124 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SQUAW BUTTE 

Against the turquoise of the evening sky, 

Oh, still and terrible she lies at rest; 

The centuries are folded on her breast 
With voiceless sorrow that will never die, 

With wonder and amaze that question, Why? 

A lone pale star upon the mountain’s crest 
Makes pause as if at her so sad behest, 

Then all the host of heaven marches by. 

We, who despoiled an Eden, drink and sleep, 

And wake uncomforted to find her there, 

The fingers of the dawn upon her hair. 

Though earth be vapor, and though flesh be grass, 

We yet shall pay—the Indian will keep 
Her vigil of reproach, and will not pass! 

—Lucy Reynolds 


[12JJ 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


BOOMTOWN DRAMA 

The place was boomin’ when the Smiths moved in, 

Along with other drifters, to the fields, 

And took a floored tent on the edge of town 
Adjoining on that vacant lot o’ Neald’s. 

Her name was Kate, and being blonde and pretty. 

She soon got tired with nothing much to do 
But sit and stare day-long at them raw derricks, 

And wonder how her Ed’s was coming through. 

Though there was some that claimed they liked to see ’em 
A-going up like towers, swift and high, 

And said they thought the rhythm of the hammers 
Beat like a pulse of music through the sky, 

To Kate they wasn’t nothing but pine lumber 
That sweaty, dirty, mule-team-gangs had hauled; 

And finally, plum wore out with all the clamor, 

The time came when she set all day and bawled. 

Ed couldn’t stand fer that, and so he moved her 
To the brick hotel built new up by the square, 

And ’twasn’t long till she’s perked up and smilin’ 

And takin’ interest in the doings there. 

Ed didn’t really mean to be neglectful, 

But a feller had to keep right on the job 
If he ’uz to hold his own in drillin’ leases 
With all that greedy, thievin’, lying mob. 

The crowd had milled in on us fore we knowed it, 

And our lil* old sleepy backwoods town 

[ 126 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Was growing mighty city-like and prosperous 
With buildings goin’ up, and drillin’ down! 

Ed’s rig was on a bit of slopin’ hillside 

Where brown loam stretched away to meet the sky, 

Where farmers had already done their plowin’ 

Before the first prospectors came to buy, 

He’d sit all day and watch the drilling 
And never smell the rich warm scent o? loam, 

Er know ez how the rig looked from a distance 
Like spires upon some rounded temple dome, 

Nor sense that all God’s lovely common beauty 
In quiet sweep of field and sunwarmed plain, 

Was bein’ torn with raspin’ drills and haulin’, 

To satisfy men’s greedy love of gain. 

To Ed his work meant home some day, and children, 
Fer all his plans was meant fer pleasin’ Kate, 

And so he kept right on a-working steady, 
A-comin’ early and a-leavin’ late. 

But Kate was quite a hand fer havin’ company, 

And lots of loafers drift in with a boom, 

So purty soon she’s havin’ dates and gaddin’, 

And riding round in cars straight to her doom. 

Her main beau was a slick and handsome feller, 

Who they said, run a private gambling den, 

And ’twasn’t long before Kate had him lassoed, 

And quit her runnin’ with the other men. 

I don’t know rightly where the blame lies, 

And whether Kate was loose er easy led. 

But all the town was talkin’ somethin’ awful, 

And everybody knowed it . . . except Ed. 

[ 127 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


At last Kate couldn’t stand it any longer, 

And she’n’er gambler left fer parts unknown, 

With strangers left to break it to her husband 
When he had come in, tired and sleepy, home. 

They said at first he couldn’t seem to sense it, 

Fer in his heart he fairly worshipped Kate, 

And even then his feeling was more pity 
When folks said he was spineless not to hate. 

They said at first he stood there like a statue, 

And then he just broke down and shook and cried 
And took on like he’s at a funeral, 

Er if his wife had just got sick and died. 

He said to let ’em go, and not to harm ’em, 

And he’s drift on, a-tryin’ not to care. 

His lonesome rig still stands till this day idle, 

Though folks say gusher oil is certain there. 

—Lexie Dean Robertson 


[ 128 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THREE PUEELOS 


Acoma 

What man shall frame the epopee 
Of this red-ribbed, pagan height, 

This ancient barbarity 
Where brown men’s might 
Lifts a city to the sky! 

Chromatic, carven cliff of Acoma— 
Amid a wild of mesas, a peopled mesa— 
In time’s remantic mirror 
Acoma is an exultant error. 


Laguna 


Warm earth rising 
In terraces of buff and grey; 

Sun-splashed soil springing, 

A memory of soft array 

And of the caress of continuous line. 

Old sun-drenched village in mood of Spain— 
Laguna is the meat of casaba melon, 

Its heart is white, pink and citron. 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Taos 

Purple and pyramidic. 

Lifting its drama to the evening sky; 

Supple in line and ryhthmic, 

Vibrating a unity in the eye. 

High-terraced Taos chants the ripe song 
Of the fullness of living— 

Ancient Taos is a bright-blanketed boy 
Chanting, dancing, leaping in joy. 

—W. W. Robinson 


[ 130 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


MESA AND FOOTHILL 

Wide pastures and far meadows, 

And rolling fields of wheat, 

And endless ranks of sword-leaved corn 
Where furrows, like a village street, 

Run always up and down; 

Or shifting dunes, grey and forlorn, 

Or little hills with sunlit crown 
I have forgot; 

And even the immensities 
Of the seven seas— 

And who has not 

Who looks upon these Western hills 

And mesas cut symmetrically 

Or blocked like pyramids against the plain? 

For washing evermore the ghostly shore 

Where fathomless the age-old sea washed in 

Against the granite and the sandstone floor 

Now swings a ghostly sea 

Majestically. 

And plangent tides still bear tall mystic spars 
Or storms toss helpless waters to the stars 
And level them again. 

For here on purple mesa and the rose-gold hills 

Below the towering range 

The far sea music not quite heard 

Haunts man with recail dreams 

Of cogent forces that primordial stirred 

[ 131 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


His ancient quest, 

And swings in far concentric circles 
Yet unguessed 
Creations endless change. 

—Edna Davis Romig 


[ 132 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


PHANTOM OXCARTS 

I shall go back to the broad plains again— 
Prairies sweeping toward the setting sun, 

The forelands of the nation, with the stain 
Of blood, the bones of scouts, the fearless gun 
Of stockade and of fort, the valiant ring 
Of woodsman’s ax; to hilltops where will burn 
The signal fires: wherever yet will cling 
Frontier tradition, there will I return. 

The phantom oxcarts will forever go 
On soundless wheels, across the sands, the snow, 
The westward wagons on, in heat or gale—- 
Across far fields where ranged the buffalo 
And dawn was wakened by the whistling quail— 
The phantom oxcarts will forever go. 

—Edna Davis Romig 


[ 133 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE ARAPAHOES 

I lift my eyes to the Arapahoes, 

Where like some frozen wave on frozen shore, 

The glacier lies forever\ wrapped in snows. 

Ages ago there bulked huge grinding floes 
Scooping the granite out in ancient score— 

I lift my eyes to the Arapahoes 

And for awhile forget my little woes; 

Oh, why should I be fretted any more? 

The glacier lies forever wrapped in snows. 

Too swiftly fades the gleam and fades the rose, 
Silent dies out life’s flickering furors . . . 

I lift my eyes to the Arapahoes 

Long now are gone those tribal Indian foes 
Who read these ancient peaks with pagan lore . . . 
The glacier lies forever wrapped in snows. 

It will outlive man’s toil and busy shows; 

It will be here with no man to explore . . . ■' 

I lift my eyes to the Arapahoes: 

The glacier lies forever wrapped in snows. 

—Edna Davis Romig 


[ 134 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE DESERT 


All noon 

A devil danced 

Upon the blistering sand, 

Clothed in shimmering robes 
Of blinding heat. 

At his command 

Gray phantoms of the past 

Filed by on fleeting feet; 

Their eyeballs sunken to deep wells 
Of misery, 

And blackened, tongues 
Went babbling endlessly 
Of icy pools 

In some green distant land. 

But night 
Decended softly 
As a vesper hymn. 

Crowned with immortal stars, 
Serene and beautiful, 

She bore the west-wind’s healing 
In her hand. 


—Virginia Spates 


[ 135 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THE FLATS 

(Prairie Land Near Sherman, Texas) 

What scene engendered such a name? 
From mountains, I confess 
Prairies made no special claim 
Upon my consciousness. 

Then, unannounced, at evening tide 
I saw this shining plain; 

So still and marvelously wide, 

Joy sharpened into pain. 

It blended with the distant air 
In tideless seas of light. 

Enchanted vision! burning there 
To minimize the night. 

Tinged with his blood the dying sun 
Drew halos in his wake, 

Faint eerie sounds, the twilight won, 
Made straining eardrums ache. 

Long, beckoning trails of powdered gold 
Flashed bright with virgin gleam, 

O mystery, that Light could mould 
Gross substance to a dream. 


—Virginia Spates 


[ 136 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SUNRISE IN ARIZONA 

I never knew such color could exist— 

Outside some painter’s bright fantastic dream— 

As sunbreak pours in an ethereal stream 
Upon bleak mountain crags. A gold-spun mist 
Has shattered into bluish amethyst, 

Rose, turquoise—indescribable! I seem 
To watch creation struggling to redeem 
The void with might no darkness could resist. 

And thus the sun, responding to the call 
When consciousness passed quivering into light, 

Leaps into being from his death-like sleep 
To spread a radiant splendor over all, 

As on that morning of unbroken night 

When God’s command first thundered on the deep. 

•—Virginia Spates 


[ 137 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


DESERT PHANTASY 
Across the haunted desert waste 
The burning winds go to and fro, 
Murmuring of Mexico. 

For here the padres came, and here 
Along the trails of yester-year 
The ruthless Spanish cavalier 
In search of Eldorado. 

Their dreams are in the drifting sands, 
In Missions raised by pious hands, 

At night there wander ghostly bands 
In search of Eldorado. 

And when I lie awake and see 
The mystic stars blaze over me, 

Oh, then I long to rise and be 
In search of Eldorado! 

For jingling spur and creaking leather 
Echo on the trails forever, 

And when the moon is shining down 
A disk of gold on Tucson town 
High Captains in their breastplates ride 
With cassocked Jesuits beside 
The cross and sword of Spain to bring 
To fabled Eldorado. 

Across the haunted desert waste 
The burning winds to to and fro, 
Murmuring of Mexico. 


[ 138 ] 


•—Henry George Weiss 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


MOUNTAIN AND THE DESERT 

"We have been,” say the mountains, 
Towering in their pride, 

Looking down on the desert 
Stretching far and wide. 

"Aye,” and answers the desert, 

"High and mighty you be, 

But the wind and the sand of the ages 
Shall level you down with me.” 

"We have been,” say the mountains, 
"When the cities of stone and jade 
Stood by the vanished rivers 
Before their ruins were made.” 

"Aye,” and answers the desert, 

"My sands swept in apace, 

And the wolf and the wild-cat wander 
Where once they had their place.” 

"We have been,” say the mountains, 
"When the dwellers of caves were here, 
When the people, time-forgotten, 
Hunted the great brown bear.” 


[ 139 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


"Aye,” and answers the desert, 

"Before the red-man came, 

And danced the dance of the painted brave 
By light of dancing flame.” 

"Impregnable,” say the mountains, 

"Forever and ever we stand, 

Lording it over the desert, 

Ruling the lonesome land.” 

"Aye,” and answers the desert, 

"High and mighty you be, 

But the wind and the sand of the ages 
Shall level you down with me.” 

—Henry George Weiss 


[ 140 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


SUMMER 

Sing a song of Summer—of leafy, sheafy Summer, 

Coming from cool mountains to walk the dusty way; 

Her petticoat upgathered, filled with woodland fragrance: 
Tasseled pine, madronya, wild grape and bay. 

She lifts brown arms to the piled, celestial masses, 
Invoking their blessing: shadow and showers. 

She wades waist-deep the wild-billowed meadows 
Where grasshoppers fiddle the brittle hours. 

Birds are sunk deep in the deep wood sanctuaries 
But goldfinches glean the fencerow seed: 

Thistle, dock and ripe blackberries 
Which Summer offers to their vagrant need. 

Sing a song of Summer—leafy, sheafy Summer, 

Grass in her hair, her smock much torn 
By sharp sweet, briar as she rides the rustling harvest 
Of well-bound sheaves to the wheat stack borne 
On creaking wagons in high-piled loads. 

Hot noon by the wayside among purple asters 
And goldenrod shaking yellow plumes now, 
Drooping-eyes, she dozes, nodding, nodding, 

Stroking the ear of a cud-chewing cow, 

While in the ditch with seven pink piglets, 

Summer-drunk and snoring, sleeps a heavy-dugged sow. 


[HI] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Sing a song of Summer. O I have often seen her 
Where the hawk’s shadow runs on the bouldered steep; 
Under an oak, seeking sweet seclusion, 

Around her couched the new-fleeced sheep 
Solftly bleating to the sun-burnt One; 

Oxen far below in the broad yoke swaying, 

Their dust a cloud of gold in the sun. 

I have seen her naked with the colts beneath the willows, 
A dark pool spread on the shining sand; 

And a green heron posing on one leg, stately 
Where the ripples cease and the rushes stand. 

Sing a song of Summer—bumblebees’ low thunder; 

And wings of butterflies throughout the land. 

•—Charles Erskine Scott Wood 


[H2] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


EXCERPTS FROM "THE POET IN THE DESERT” 

I. 

Behold the signs of the Desert: 

The stagnant water-hole, trampled with hoofs; 

About it shine the white bones of those 
Who came too late. 

A whirling dust-pillar, waltz of Wind and Earth; 

Glistening black wralls of obsidian 

Where the wild tribes fashioned their arrowheads. 

The ground with fragments is strewn, 

Just as they dropped them, 

The strokes of the makers undimmed 
Through the dumb and desperate years; 

But the hunters have gone forever. 

The Desert cares no more for the death of these 
Than for the death of the armies of crawling crickets. 
Dazzling in the sun, whiter than snow, I see the bones 
Of those who have existed as I now exist. 

The bones are here. Where are they who lived? 

A thin veil of gnats buzz their hour. 

I know they are my brothers, and I 
Less than the dial-shadow of the rock, 

For the shadow returns forever. 

Silence invincible; impregnable; 

Compelling the soul to stand forth 
And be questioned. 

Night overwhelms me. 


[H3] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Coyotes bark to the stars. 

Upon the midnight sand I lie, 

Thoughtfully sifting the earth 
Through my fingers 
I am that dust. 

I look up to the stars, 

Knowing to them my life is not 
More valuable than that of the flowers; 

The little, delicate flowers of the Desert, 

Which, like a breath, catch at the hem of Spring 
And are gone. 


II. 

Never have I found place or season without beauty; 
Neither the sea, where the white stallions 
Champ their bits and rear against their bridles; 

Where the floor of the world is laid in purple 
And the Sun walks in gold and scarlet. 

Nor the Desert, sitting scornful, apart, 

An unwooed Princess, careless, indifferent; 

Spreading her garments wonderful beyond estimation, 
And embroidering continually her mantle. 

She is a queen, seated on a throne of gold 
In the Hall of Silence. 

She insists upon humility. 

She insists upon meditation. 

She insists that the soul be free. 

She requires an answer. 

She demands the final reply to thoughts 
Which cannot be answered. 

She lights the Sun for a torch 
[144] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


And sets up the great cliffs as sentinels. 

The morning and the evening are curtains 
Before her chamber. 

She is cruel and invites victims, 

Restlessly moving her wrists and ankles 
Which are loaded with sapphires. 

Her brown breasts flash with opals. 

She slays those who fear her, 

But runs her hand lovingly over the brow 
Of those who dare, 

Soothing with a voluptuous caress. 

She is a courtesan, wearing jewels, 

Enticing, smiling a bold smile; 

Adjusting her brilliant raiment negligently, 

Lying brooding upon her floor, richly carpeted; 
Her brown thighs beautiful and naked. 

She toys with the dazzlry of her diadems, 

And displays the stars as her coronet, 

Smiling inscrutably. 

She is a nun, withdrawing behind her veil; 

Grey, mysterious, meditative, unapproachable. 

Her body is tawn with the eagerness of the Sun 
And her eyes are pools which shine in deep canyons. 
She is a beautiful swart woman, 

With opals at her throat, 

Rubies on her wrists 
And topaz about her ankles. 

Her breasts are like the evening and the day stars. 
She sits upon her throne of light, proud and silent, 
Indifferent to wooers. 

The Sun is her servitor, the Stars her attendants; 


[H5] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Running before her. 

She sings a song unto her own ears, 

Solitary, but sufficient; 

The song of her being. 

She is a naked dancer, dancing upon 
A pavement of porphyry and pearl, 

Dazzling, so that the eyes must be shaded. 

She wears the stars upon her bosom 

And braids her hair with the constellations. 

III. 

Behold the silver-kirtled Dawn, 

Life-renewer; Harvester of gloom; 

Bright Bringer of good hope. 

The skies are listening to Earth’s silence. 

The Desert sleeps, but her wild children, 

Like fretful babies, stir upon her bosom, 

And the Comforter casts abroad her gossamer mantle. 
The prowler of night, 

The lean coyote, 

Slips to his rocky fastnesses, 

And noiselessly, through the gray sage, 

Jack-rabbits shuttle. 

Now, from the castle-ated cliffs 
Rock-ravens launch their proud black sails. 

Wild horses neigh and toss their manes, 

Trooping back to pasture; 

Orioles begin to twitter. 

All shy things, breathless, watch 
The thin, white skirts or Dawn, 

The Dancer of the sky, 


[ 146 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Tripping daintily down the roseate mountain, 
Emptying a golden basin. 

A red-bird, dipped in sunrise, 

Cracks from a poplar top 

His exultant whip above a silver world. 

—Charles Erskine Scott Wood 


[ 147 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


MIRED 

Along the edge of the vast tule morass; 

Stretching away toward the purple hills, 
Continually, the restless cattle pass 
And mutter the dumb grief that fills 
Their breasts, because an old mired cow 
Sends to her kind, beseeching calls. 

Floundering in the black, relentless slough, 

Deeper she falls. 

Above, on careless, sky-free wing, 

Waterfowl enjoy the watery wilderness. 

Blackbirds on giant rushes lightly swing. 

Around is a great loneliness. 

A tongue-lolling coyote sneaking on his way 
To safer plunder, eyes her feeble stir 
And over his shoulder, desert-thief in grey, 
Contemptuous, sniffs a wicked nose at her; 

Then stealthily he prowls on through the herd. 

Down from the sky, the wide-winged carrion bird. 
Weak, from the winter and her sucking calf, 

She cannot struggle any more. 

The coyote yelps a shrill demoniac laugh. 

The buzzard’s shadow glides along the shore. 

Close to the miry edge blubbers her baby bull. 

She lifts, against the clammy clutch again; 

One last, despairing, mighty mother-pull, 

In vain ... in vain. 


[ 148 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


Gnats at her eyes, 

Buzzing, big blue-bottle flies. 

On easy sail and slow, 

Closer swings the obscene bird of death. 

The horned head sinks low. 

The ooze is bubbled by her breath. 

—Charles Erskine Scott Wood 


[ 149 ] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


THREE POEMS OF THE SOUTHWEST 

I. 

Here the flat earth 

Unknown to trees 

Stands deep in the yellow sun 

And the falling houses crumbling to dust: 

Here now the yellow grass 

Dead in the root last year 

Nourishes a thinner newer sound of wind. 

Here now the deserted land 
Waterless and dried 
Driven by a dull barrenness 
And unknown to trees 
Holds fast with the elements 

Where the dry dark has disentegrated roots and bones. 
Here now the thick hot sun 

Wavering on the small grasses, dead at the root last year, 
Will stir and move like a ghost without sound. 

There are no shadows here: 

The Spring brings no green, 

Brown cattle stalk on the waterless land, 

And birds at certain seasons 
Scream and pass over. 


[no] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


II. 

This is the land; the long red earth 
Peopled by some darker race 
Who have sat in the sun too long: 

Here is the land 

Where roots have long decayed 

From the mouths of bitter seeds: 

Dust and the red earth 

And the thick dead grass bending for miles: 
Here no shadow has ever fallen, 

And the birds go over all day 
Screaming. 


III. 

Here on the dead land the dull grey houses 
Where the roofs cave slowly in the sun: 

On certain winter days 

Thin figures trace out red paths, slowly: 

The bleak houses continue to crumble 
Standing in high sun, 

And on the long land 
Peopled by thinning figures, 

By a dark woman and a light man, 

The sun whirls slowly on forgotten roofs: 

The figures have forgotten what they knew: 

At evening scarlet fowls pierce silence, darkening blue, 
And the smoke drifts into the pale sky: 

They have forgotten the thunder of rain, 

While the long strings of the thick wind 
Make minor horrors of the night. 


—Kathleen Tankersley Young 

[in] 


THE GOLDEN STALLION 


LANDSCAPE IN SPRING 

Through sunlight silver birds are sifted, 

And broken rotted hands have lifted 
Crimson flowers from the dust: 

Now the piercing thrust 
Of sound from a dove’s mouth, 

And winds from the mountains: and in the south 
Waves pale upon an empty sea: 

Wait: in this immensity 

Such unfolding brilliancy will find 

Clearer mirrors for the minds. 

Through sunlight silver birds have lifted, 

And crimson petals have been drifted 
To the grass: 

No more: we are the last who pass 
Through all this splendor, having died 
Before, and having known before the wide 
And brilliant days to go 
Breathlessly, row on row: 

Weep not if our heads are bent 
Unto this bitter sacrament: 

Stilled now the landscape where 
Everything is drenched in final silver air. 

—Kathleen Tankersley Young 


[ 152 ] 








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